


The Negotiation Limerick File

by harriet_vane



Series: Spies and Ninjas Universe [1]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 14:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harriet_vane/pseuds/harriet_vane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Have you any funny stories behind the making of the album [pretty. odd.]?<br/>“We can’t... I mean...”<br/>“We can’t tell you any funny stories because we’d probably be killed.”<br/>- Jon and Ryan being interviewed by NME.com</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Negotiation Limerick File

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't post this fic anywhere else, please don't distribute it anywhere, please don't put it on goodreads, and really really please don't link it to anyone being written about here. Thanks!

  
**_NOW_ **

The air duct wasn’t wide enough to really move his arms. Brendon pulled himself forward with his elbows and tried holding his breath. The problem was that he was attempting to be quiet, but the god damned air duct was lined with aluminum. Every time Brendon edged forward he banged his sneaker into the wall. Someone was going to hear. And then he was going to get caught, which would probably lead to his death. In which case Frank and Gerard were going to die, too.

“God damned,” Brendon muttered, “lousy,” he whispered, “stupid,” a corner, really, was not what he needed at this exact second, “My Chemical Romance.”

He was sweating, and his glasses were slipping down his nose. MCR had told him that glasses were a liability in a serious situation, but Brendon had ignored them, because he had been counting on avoid anything that was life-or-death. So much for that plan. They were totally right, though. The glasses sucked.

“Fucking Ryan,” Brendon said under his breath, “would probably fit through this tunnel like a … Like a … A fucking _weasel_.” Weasels were skinny, right? And they went around corners easily? He had never actually considered what animal he’d compare Ryan Ross to before, but clearly weasel was the answer. Particularly because Brendon and Ryan were kind of having a fight at the moment, and Ryan had no idea what was really going on tonight, so Ryan wasn’t worried that if he screwed up people would die. Stupid Ryan was just worried that he couldn’t find his fingerless gloves.

Any minute now the band were going to start wondering where their lead singer was, too.

Brendon really, really didn’t want the answer to be “dead.” Or even, “being held at gun point attempting to save two guys who aren’t even on our label, but apparently have ridiculous double lives.” He edged around the corner and his foot totally banged against the wall. It was really loud. Brendon winced and froze, waiting. He could hear a murmur of voices below him, although he couldn’t make out the words. If they heard him everything was fucked.

They kept talking. Brendon blew out a long, shaky breath and started edging forward again.

“This is not,” he whispered as quietly as he could, “what I signed up for.” He’d quit being a spy, he’d told Frank and Gerard he wanted out. He wanted to go back to being just a regular old regulation rock star who did _not_ deal with life and death situations beyond the occasional crazy fan. This was totally stupid and he ought to turn around and go home. He couldn’t, though, because the air duct was too narrow and also Gerard and Frank were going to _die_. The fuckers.

The vent he’d been heading for was right ahead of him. He could see it, finally. Thank god. Brendon edged forward until his fingers were in the grill, and he was looking down in to the room. There was Gerard, beaten all to hell, and Frank, tied to a chair. Motherfuckers. Brendon had really, really been hoping that they were just faking the whole thing, and by the time he got there they’d have grabbed the guns and be delivering cocky speeches that started, “Not so fast! You thought you had us, didn’t you. Ha ha ha!” Instead, Gerard was mostly bleeding all over his t-shirt and Frank just looked furious and impotent.

That meant it was actually all up to Brendon. Brendon, who’d quit. Brendon, who’d fucked up no matter how patiently Ray and Bob had tried to teach him all the spy stuff he might need in a situation like this. He didn’t have a plan so much as a growing sense of panic – ha, ironic – and the crystal-clear understanding that if he didn’t do something in the next minute and a half, Gerard was probably going to die. The guy in the suit had his gun out and pointing at Gerard’s head and everything.

“Donovan has some questions about the band,” he said to Frank. “Unless you’d rather we killed him?”

“Fuck you,” said Frank.

“Fuck,” Brendon whispered to no one in particular. “Fuck. Fucking _fuck_.”

And to think, it had all started out so promisingly.

\ \ \ \ \

**_THEN_ **

Brendon was late. He was never late to anything, that was totally Ryan’s thing when he didn’t care because he was high or writing. Ryan was awesome, but he didn’t have a lot of sense of other people’s time being valuable. He had like, evolved beyond it or something.

Brendon ran down the hallway and skidded around a corner. The venue was a fucking maze of concrete hallways and doors that were locked or led nowhere. Zack would have known where to go, but Zack had gone with Spencer and Jon and Ryan, and Brendon had accidentally locked himself in the bathroom for five minutes and by the time he got out they were gone. They were horrible, horrible friends and Brendon planned to tell them so if he ever figured out where they’d gone. How far could this tunnel possibly go before it came to a door that would let him on to the stage?

The tunnel ended in a door, and the door was locked. Brendon stared at it for a second. This was so _unfair_. He was going to be yelled at by his band and it wasn’t even his fault, really, except for the part where Zack had totally explained how to get to the stage and Brendon hadn’t been listening because he had Avril Lavigne’s _Girlfriend_ going through his head over and over.

Brendon yanked on the double doors a couple of times, but they didn’t give, and he was unlikely to swell up like the Hulk and smash them open. “Help!” Brendon yelled, banging on it with his fist a couple of times, just in case there was anyone on the other side to hear him. He waited, but nothing happened.

He turned and went down the tunnel the other way. There were other doors, but they were all locked, until the one that wasn’t, which flew open under Brendon’s hand.

Brendon was surprised that it led in to an office, and not anything that looked stage-related, like a dressing room or a storage closet. He was doubly surprised because it was a pretty small office with lots of people in it.

He was triply surprised because – “Gerard?” Brendon blurted. “Gerard _Way_?”

Everyone turned around to look at him. More weirdness; he’d recognized Gerard from the back but he hadn’t realized the short guy next to him with the long hair was Frank Iero. Plus there were all these guys in suits holding guns.

Guns.

Um.

“Holy _shit_ ,” said Brendon. His fight-or-flight instinct was totally broken. He had one hand on the doorknob and his mouth was moving but no sounds were coming out and he was pretty sure he wasn’t blinking, either.

The guys with guns aimed them at him. Brendon’s head went all light and spinny. There were guns aimed at him. He was a nice Mormon kid – okay, so not so much anymore, but whatever – and this was not anything he knew how to react to. He kind of wanted to duck behind something, but there was nothing in the hallway but concrete. Seriously, where the fuck was Zack when Brendon actually, really, honestly, _needed_ him?

“Fuck,” said Gerard Way, in that weird high-pitched voice he had. Brendon had met him a couple of times at awards shows and stuff, but he still had serious hero-worship for the guy. Back when Ryan and Spencer had been covering Blink 182 in the garage, My Chemical Romance had already been a fucking awesome band.

“Uh,” said Brendon. “I, uh… Don’t shoot.” He considered holding his hands up like they did on TV, but he was pretty sure if he let go of the door he was going to faint or something else super uncool. What the fuck was going on? Was someone going to shoot Gerard and Frank? Brendon wasn’t exactly overflowing with kick-ass ninja-fu to bust out, but he was pretty sure he could at least distract them.

On the other hand, Gerard and Frank didn’t look scared. They looked… They looked _annoyed_. “Oh, god damn it,” said Frank.

It was like, the least _possible_ importance right now, but Brendon blurted, “Aren’t you guys on tour? A lot of cities away from here? And is that a powerpoint of Osama Bin Laden? And uh… Is that _blood_ on your shirt?” Frank was totally covered in blood, and not in an oh-look-I-got-a-nosebleed kind of way. It went way past ‘hard core,’ all the way to ‘psycho killer.’ “Something’s going on, huh?” Brendon asked. “Is it something cool? What is it? What’s _that_? Who are they?” Brendon had a tendency to babble when he was nervous. He bit his lip and tried to stop.

Frank and Gerard exchanged a look. It was a lot like when Spencer and Ryan exchanged a look, and Brendon knew that years and years of friendship were being parlayed into a conversation he’d never be allowed to hear, let alone understand. He’d learned not to get too resentful.

“Guys,” said Gerard finally. “I think we should explain some things to Brendon.”

It sounded mysterious and cool, although there were _people with guns_. “Really?” Brendon said hopefully. “Because I’m late for meeting the band. But maybe you could tell me really quickly, and then I could tell them where I was? Because that’s… That’s a real gun, right? I mean, holy shit.” The guys with guns were watching him carefully. Brendon couldn’t decide if he wanted to demand to know what was going on, or run away really fast and come back with Zack and Spencer, who would cope with this a lot better.

“Brendon,” said Frank. “In. Sit.” He pointed to a chair. “Before someone shoots you.”

“He’s just a kid, Frank,” said Gerard. “You’re scaring him.”

“Hey,” said Brendon. “I’m twenty! I’m not—”

“He’s an infant,” Frank agreed. The room was small enough that he just leaned over and grabbed Brendon by the arm, dragging him in to the room and shoving him in to the chair. The doors swung shut behind him. They made a really loud, final-sounding banging noise.

“I totally want to know what’s going on. I just uh, I’d rather not get shot, okay?” Brendon said, so it was clear to everyone in the room.

Gerard rolled his eyes. “Then listen carefully,” he said. “You guys can put those away. We’re gonna tell Brendon about this.”

“He’s not cleared,” said the guy in the suit with the dark glasses. He had his gun aimed right at Brendon’s head. It was so fucking scary. It was also really _cool_.

“I’m clearing him,” Gerard said. “He won’t tell anyone. Right?”

Brendon nodded so hard it felt like his head might pop off.

“No one,” Frank said firmly. “Not even the guys in your Fisher Price My First Band.”

“But—” Brendon started. He was totally shit at keeping secrets from Ryan, because Ryan _glared_ , and he was even worse at keeping them from Spencer, because Spencer would beat on him until he gave them up.

“Because if Brendon tells anyone,” Gerard went on, “he knows we’ll have to kill him fucking dead.”

Gerard Way said a lot of crazy things. Like, he totally believed vampires were real and probably unicorns, too, and all _kinds_ of other stuff. Brendon believed him, though. The two guys in dark suits who had guns aimed at Brendon’s head helped. “I won’t tell anyone,” Brendon promised.

“ _No one_ ,” said Frank, leaning forward. Gerard wasn’t especially scary, but Frank, for all he was only like an inch taller than Brendon, had crazy eyes. He’d probably shoot Brendon himself.

“No one,” Brendon repeated. “Absolutely no one at all.”

“Because, see,” Frank went on, in his quiet, insane voice, “if we thought you’d told Ryan, or Spencer, or whatshisname, we’d have to kill them, too.”

Brendon swallowed really hard. He was bad at keeping secrets, but he could probably do it if the alternative was death for his best friends. What the _fuck_ was going on? “Okay,” he said nodding. “I promise. And uh, his name is Jon.”

Gerard and Frank exchanged another look, and then they nodded at the guys in suits. All the guns disappeared into wicked hidden holsters under their jackets. It was very _The Matrix_. Gerard probably had a floor-length leather duster. Brendon totally wanted to buy one.

“Brendon,” said Gerard, in his serious, women-are-underrepresented-in-the-media voice. “My Chemical Romance isn’t just a band. We’re saving the world.”

“Right,” Brendon nodded quickly. “You’re all ‘don’t do drugs,’ and ‘respect the gay people.’ That’s awesome.”

“No,” said Gerard, “I mean we’re _saving_ the _world_. We’re a band, but it’s also a convenient way to travel. People expect us to go all over the place so no one’s surprised when we fly to New Zealand or Japan or D.C. all of a sudden. We work for the government.”

“Cool! That is _so_ – Wait.” Brendon blinked a couple of times. “Isn’t… Doesn’t the current administration kind of go against everything you normally say you stand for? So that’s really, _really_ cool, but a little hypocritical. Uh, are they going to shoot me?” He waved uncertainly at the gun-toting suits. They were easily twice the size of a normal human each, even if Brendon did spend most of his time with the skinniest guys in the entire universe.

Frank rolled his eyes. “Not _that_ government,” he said. “The world government.”

“The U.N.?”

Gerard and Frank looked at each other. “Not… exactly,” said Gerard.

“We don’t work for the government,” said Frank, “we work for the _world_. Remember when everyone thought Iran was starting a nuclear project that would probably end up destroying the Middle East? Well, they _were_ , until we snuck in and dismantled it.”

“Ray and Mikey are going to solve global warming,” Gerard went on blithely. “They just haven’t stolen the code to the secret facility yet.”

“What we’re saying to you,” said Frank, “is that you’ve stumbled on something _really_ serious, and we’re not fucking kidding. We will kill you.”

“We’d rather not, though,” said Gerard, and grinned.

Brendon should probably have been scared, but mostly he was overwhelmed with curiosity. “No, no, this is _amazing_ ,” Brendon insisted. “How do you find time to do all this shit while you’re touring? Does Brian know? Oh my god, does _Pete_ know? Can you teach me how to do it? Can I help? I want to save the world, too! Let me help!”

Gerard and Frank exchanged another look. It was totally unreadable, except Frank looked annoyed about something.

“This is probably how it fucking starts,” Frank muttered.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Gerard replied. “Maybe this is—”

“If we let him in, next thing you know it’s going to be little emo kids everywhere we look.”

Brendon couldn’t stop himself from bouncing in the chair a little bit. “ _Please_ let me help. C’mon. Please. _Please_.”

“I think we have to,” Gerard sighed. He sounded unhappy. Brendon didn’t care. He was going to get to be a super spy and _save the world_ and shit.

Frank shook his head, but he shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “Okay, Brendon. Here’s the deal.” He smiled. It was a little wolfish. Brendon was a little scared, but he was more _totally_ fucking _psyched_.

\ \ \

Brendon ran in to the sound check a full hour late. Spencer was so angry his face was bright red. “Jesus _fuck_ , Brendon!” he yelled. “Where the _fuck_ have you been? We called you seventeen fucking times! I can fire you. Ryan can sing!”

“Uh,” said Jon. “Dude. Chill.”

Ryan blinked at Brendon a couple of times. “Are you okay?” he said.

It was probably a give away that Brendon hadn’t said anything in almost a full minute, including an apology. His head was swimming. He had Gerard and Frank from My Chemical Romance programmed in to his Sidekick, along with an emergency number that would allegedly alert the Pentagon to a world crisis and maybe get the secret branch of the marines to show up wherever he was. It was in his phone under ‘Becky.’ Brendon was both excited to the point of incoherence and terrified to touch the stupid thing, which had made texting Spencer back difficult.

“Sorry,” said Brendon. “I uh. I got lost?” _On the way to an alternate dimension_ , he didn’t add, because it would have made the band even more suspicious. He said stuff like that anyway, sometimes, but usually only when he and Jon were high.

Spencer punched him in the shoulder. “If the show tonight sucks, it will totally be your fault, Brendon, and then I am going to _kill you_.”

Brendon nodded and tried to look as little as possible like a person who was now partially responsible for ensuring world peace. He was pretty sure he couldn’t possibly remember all the words and play piano and wonder about the fate of the world hinging on Mikey fucking Way, all at once. If the show tonight sucked it would totally be all his fault.

\ \ \

The first thing that happened was nothing.

It was understandable, since My Chemical Romance was on tour somewhere far away, and Panic! was on a totally different tour. Brendon was busy singing, and helping Jon choose flip-flops for on stage, and playing guitar hero with Spencer to see how mad he could make Ryan. Brendon had a problem where sometimes he did stupid things to get Ryan’s attention

Brendon was totally overcome with curiosity, however, and ended up spending tons of time checking the internet for My Chem news, just in case. Just in case of _what_ Brendon wasn’t sure about, but if those guys were really sneaking all over the world tracking down bad guys and solving crimes someone would have noticed, right?

He waited for his phone to ring, or ninjas to sneak on their tour bus and kill everyone, or _something_ to happen, but for two weeks nothing did. Brendon got edgier and edgier. He was worried that the guys were going to go back on their word and not let him be an international ninja spy, or whatever the fuck they were.

When something finally did happen Brendon was fast asleep. He was dreaming that he was at Disneyworld and he was performing in one of the shows, but he was also watching the show with Ryan, holding Ryan’s hand and explaining that Mickey Mouse really loved the keytar. It didn’t matter because the dream shifted so that Brendon was trying to get Ryan to kiss him, and then his Sidekick started beeping. Brendon’s brain decided that the beeping was a bomb that was going to go off and kill everyone in the theme park, and Brendon tried to warn Ryan without using the words ‘bomb’ or ‘spy’ or ‘Gerard Way.’

Spencer threw a shoe at his bunk. “Turn it _off_ ,” he ordered, mostly into his pillow.

Frank had been pretty clear that Brendon wasn’t supposed to turn his sidekick off, on pain of death. Possibly actual, real, literal death. “Sorry,” Brendon whispered back, hitting mute. He blinked at the screen for a minute.

 _u up_ said the screen. It was from Frank.

Brendon considered texting back ‘no.’ Then he considered how Frank Iero would kill him. _Y_ he typed back instead.

_b will talk 2 u aftr teh show 2mrw. tell emo! at the rennfaire u r busy._

_b?_

_u shuld prbbly strt working out 2 lazy_

_what????_ Brendon texted. There weren’t enough question marks in the world.

_cu l8r bb_

Brendon almost clapped out loud in glee, and stopped just in time, because Spencer would not be amused. He could totally start working out, if that was what would help him be a super spy. He had really cool sneakers already.

“Are you done?” Ryan moaned. “You text really loudly, dude.”

“Shut up, Ross,” Brendon replied automatically. “Hey, I totally dreamed we were on a date at a Disney theme park. And there was a bomb, and you—”

“Brendon, shut _up_ ,” Ryan ordered. He made a big deal about rolling over loudly and rearranging the pillows in his bunk.

Sometimes Brendon got a little bummed out. He’d had a secret crush on Ryan, way back a million years ago. It was really amazing he’d managed to get over it so well. “You know you love me,” Brendon said.

“I’d love you to shut up,” Spencer groaned.

Brendon grinned to himself. It only lasted a minute, though. He spent the rest of the night wondering what the hell Frank was talking about.

\ \ \ \

The show the next night sucked. Okay, it didn’t suck like back when they were first signed and none of them really knew what they were doing, but it sucked a little. Brendon was distracted, and Ryan kept frowning at him.

“Did you honestly fucking forget the words?” Spencer demanded. “Should we make you cue cards? Would you like us to write them on your arm for you?”

“I just fumbled them for a second,” Brendon said. “Why don’t you sing, if it’s so easy, Spencer? Oh, that’s right, because you sound like a dying water buffalo. Shut up.”

“Your face,” said Spencer, disgruntled.

“Your _mom’s_ face.”

“Who wants to go back to the hotel?” Jon asked. That was his not-very-subtle way of trying to stop the fight by asking who wanted to get high.

“Uh,” said Brendon, looking around. Someone was supposed to be meeting him. “I think I have to, uh. Do stuff.”

Ryan frowned. He was all sweaty, which was a weirdly good look on him. Not that Brendon had noticed. “Like what?” he asked. “What’s _stuff_?”

“I don’t know,” Brendon said honestly.

Zack stuck his head in the dressing room. “Brendon?” he said. “Someone’s here to talk to you.”

Brendon didn’t bounce or clap or yell ‘Yay!’ or anything. He did look guiltily at Ryan, though. Ryan frowned. “Who’s here to talk to you?” Ryan asked.

“No one,” Brendon said, because he didn’t know. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“Spencer,” Ryan said plaintively. “Who is Brendon hanging out with that’s not us?”

Spencer shrugged. Brendon snuck out past Zack and down the hall.

There was a doorway he wasn’t expecting, where a hand shot out and grabbed him by the hood of his sweatshirt and yanked. Brendon windmilled and almost fell, and when he caught himself he was nose-to-nose with Bob Bryar.

Frank Iero was scary in that ‘hi I’m crazy’ kind of way, but Bob was just genuinely a guy who could punch the teeth out of your head. “Hi,” Brendon squeaked. “Um. You’re B, right?”

Bob rolled his eyes. “We don’t let Frank make up the code names anymore,” he said. “How you doin’? Totally freaking out? Gerard said you might be totally freaking out.”

“Oh my god, is _that_ why you call him ‘Gee’?” Brendon asked. “It’s like, a super secret spy codename, right?”

“We call him that because his name starts with the letter G,” said Bob. “Are you freaking out?”

“I am cool as a cucumber,” Brendon lied. “ _Should_ I be freaking out? Is something going on? Oh my god, is there a nuclear war going on? Are you guys totally stopping nuclear terrorists right now? Do you—”

Bob put a hand over Brendon’s mouth. Brendon shut up. “You’re freaking out,” Bob said. He sighed. “Fine. Listen, we talked about it, and we decided there’s a slim chance we might use you for some stuff eventually, and that means you have to learn things. Okay?”

Bob wasn’t the most enlightening speaker ever. Brendon nodded. He was so fucking excited. Bob moved his hand. “Stuff like what?” Brendon whispered. “I don’t have to kill anyone, do I? I’m a vegetarian, I don’t think I can kill anyone.”

“Why couldn’t it have been Spencer?” Bob muttered. Brendon wasn’t especially insulted. Spencer would probably have been really good at all this shit. “No, you don’t have to kill anyone. I’m just gonna show you some things that might save someone’s life at some point. Like yours.”

“Here?” Brendon asked, looking around. “At the venue?”

Bob grinned. Bob had a really friendly grin, usually, but this time it looked a tiny bit feral. “Not exactly,” he said.

\ \ \ \

“We’re on the roof? Cool!” Brendon said. The parking lot around the venue was pretty empty, and anyone who might have seen them was already totally drunk. “Will it spoil your plan if I fall off? What are we doing up here? Are we going to rappel down, like Batman?”

“The idea,” said Bob patiently, “is that no one will interrupt us. We do this all the time, and if Gerard’s never fallen to his death I’m not that worried about you.” He took off his jacket and stretched his arms. “It’ll hopefully never happen,” he said, “but have you ever been in a fight?”

Brendon didn’t particularly like the sound of that. “I’ve had people offer to kick my ass,” he said. “Usually I just run away.”

“Good instincts,” said Bob. “Okay, so you’ve never taken a punch?”

“Of course I’ve gotten punched. I’m the youngest of five kids. Plus, I live with Spencer on a tiny bus. I’ve gotten punched like a million times.”

“Not by anyone who wanted to kill you,” Bob said grimly. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to show you how to duck a punch, and then how to throw one. And then next week, when we have a couple of days off, Mikey is going to show you some of his gadgets.”

“Mikey has gadgets?” Brendon frowned. “I thought he was kind of… Isn’t he a little bit of a space case?” That was the impression Brendon had gotten lurking on the fansites.

“Mikey makes all our stuff,” Bob said. “You know how Gerard says he’s a genius? This is what he means.”

“Didn’t he take a heater in to the shower one time, though?” Brendon argued.

Bob shrugged. “He forgot it wasn’t the one he’d rigged up to work underwater.” He held up his hands for a second, balling them in to fists. Brendon was not super enthusiastic about the part of the evening where he got punched by Bob Bryar.

“Are you seriously about to punch me?” Brendon asked. “Can we maybe skip this part and you can teach me how to be a ninja or something? Oh, I know. Can you show me how to hack computers? We can take down the military-industrial complex. It’ll be awesome!”

“That’s really more Ray’s thing. I’m not going to punch you if you duck,” said Bob patiently. “Okay, when I swing like this, you move. Like this.” He put a hand on Brendon’s shoulder and shoved. “Got it?”

“Uh. Sure!” said Brendon.

Bob frowned. “Duck,” he said curtly, and swung.

Brendon ducked. Or he tried to duck, but he didn’t duck enough, because Bob totally clipped him on the shoulder anyway, and it hurt like fuck. “Ow,” he said. Bob swung again. Brendon jumped backward. Bob moved forward so fast Brendon couldn’t even see him, and then, _bam_ , Brendon was on his ass on the roof, and he couldn’t breathe because Bob had nailed him right in the stomach.

“I said duck,” Bob said.

“I…” Brendon wheezed. “I did!”

“Okay, well… Duck better, then,” Bob ordered. “C’mon, get up. We haven’t even started yet.”

Brendon got to his feet. “Aren’t you on tour somewhere really far away from here?” he asked plaintively.

“We had the night off, and Gerard’s worried you’re going to get hurt,” Bob said. “Duck.”

“Wait, why does Gerard think—” Brendon started, and then he was on his ass again. “Ow, motherfucker, warn a guy!”

“I said duck,” Bob said. “You are really bad at this, you know that?”

“Well then maybe you could swing a little less hard,” Brendon complained. “I’m new to being a super world-saving secret spy, or whatever you guys do when you’re not writing songs about vampires, jeez.”

Bob rolled his eyes. “Are you any better at hitting?”

He absolutely wasn’t. “Maybe,” said Brendon. “I’m not standing up unless you’re going to stop punching me.”

Bob put his hands on his hips. “You’re going to do exactly what I say, okay, because otherwise I’m gonna start swinging for real. I know fifteen ways to kill you, and not a single one will leave any evidence.”

Brendon stared. There was a chance Bob was joking. Bob wasn’t blinking, though, or smiling, or doing anything that might indicate he was kidding. “Um,” said Brendon. “I will do exactly as you say, I guess.”

It turned out Brendon was just as bad at the hitting part as the ducking part. The first time he took a swing he just managed to hurt his own hand. The second time, Bob blinked and said, “Maybe you didn’t understand. _Hit_ me.” The third time Bob rolled his eyes and said, “God, I thought this was bad with _Mikey_.” That made Brendon feel a little bit better, oddly; there was no way he was as bad at this as Mikey Way was. It wasn’t possible.

Bob made him punch a few thousand times, until his hands were totally numb and his arms felt like lead. Then Bob said, “Okay, let’s try flipping people,” and grabbed Brendon, knocking him flat again.

Just about at the point where Brendon was sure he was going to die even if Bob didn’t kill him, Bob stopped. “Sit,” he said, pointing to the roof. Brendon dropped gratefully. His palms and knees were totally skinned from falling, he was bruised everywhere, and his heart was pounding in his ears. “So you probably have some questions,” Bob said, sitting down next to him.

Brendon had thousands of questions. “Yeah,” he said. “Can I start with ‘What the fuck is going on?’ I mean, it’s totally the coolest thing I ever found out accidentally, including the time I walked in on Ryan making LOL cats on his laptop. That was hilarious, by the way.”

Bob cracked a smile. He was way less scary when he was smiling. “That’s how we all felt,” Bob said. “One minute Gerard was in rehab, the next he’d volunteered us to be an elite crime-fighting team.” Bob shrugged, clearly saying _That’s how Gerard is, you know?_ Brendon was glad he only had to deal with Ryan, who was kind of weird, but not _that_ weird. “Gerard is pretty bad at the hand-to-hand parts, too, but he’s a genius at foiling evil schemes and last-minute rescues.”

“Not to be rude or anything,” Brendon said, “but Mikey’s bad at fighting too, right?”

Bob laughed. “Yeah, we mostly don’t let Mikey come with us if we think there might be violence. I swear to god, he’ll just lean against the wall and let us handle it, and then afterwards he yawns and goes, ‘Well, that sucked.’” He shook his head.

“Can I go instead of Mikey?” Brendon asked. “I will totally kick ass, honestly. I would be an _amazing_ spy. I’m really great at sneaking around the bus, which I have to do a lot because Ryan can only write in total silence. Plus, sometimes Spencer gets these headaches, you know, and I don’t disturb him at all.” There were other times, of course, like when Brendon had accidentally set the microwave on fire, and that one time he’d gotten caught sniffing Ryan’s sweatshirt – for totally uncreepy reasons, okay, the way Ryan smelled cheered him up a little bit – and Ryan had walked in and looked pretty horrified. Brendon wasn’t going to mention that to Bob, though.

Bob considered for a minute. “Normally, I think, we’d leave you out of it,” Bob said. “But maybe. Gerard said… Well, I can’t tell you about that. But yeah, it’s better if you know how.”

Brendon’s heart sank. “I can be really useful,” he insisted. “Honestly.”

“At the very least you’re persistent,” Bob conceded.

“Yeah,” Brendon agreed. “And that is just one of my many virtues, dude. I’m awesome. Try me.”

Bob hesitated. “This is the deep end, okay, Brendon? There are a lot of bad people and they’re doing really bad things. I’m just showing you how to swim, because there are sharks. Or something. I don’t know. Metaphors are Gerard’s thing.” Bob rolled his eyes. “This gig is dangerous. There are lots of really nasty people.”

“I can handle it,” said Brendon. That seemed probably true.

“Way worse than what you’re thinking,” Bob said. “Drugs and murder and extortion and weapons-running and… You might get hurt, and you’re just a kid.”

“I’m not,” said Brendon. “I’ll be fine. I promise. I can get way better at all this stuff you’re showing me.”

“It’s just for the last resort. You know, if you get caught or in trouble.” Bob sounded ominous, but Brendon wasn’t going to let that keep him down.

“Can I tell the band?” Brendon asked. “Spencer would be so excited about this, dude, you have no idea.” He’d also probably be better at it than Brendon was.

“No way,” Bob said. “We’re responsible for some really important secrets. Gerard and Frank got in so much trouble for telling you. The fewer people know, the less likely any of you are to get kidnapped or tortured.”

“Uh. Okay.” Brendon shuddered. “I keep my mouth shut, in that case,” he said. Kidnapping and torture sounded bad. Brendon was against them.

Bob looked skeptical. “Don’t do anything until you know what you’re doing, okay?” said Bob. “Just… Keep your head down and your eyes open. Maybe try to get in better shape. You could go running or something. Try some weight lifting. I thought the guys in our band were small, but you’re practically an elf.”

“Hey!” Brendon protested.

Bob gave him a _look_. “Pocket sized,” he said firmly. “Like Frank. And dude, if we know you know, someone else is going to find out eventually. Be ready. You don’t have to be able to kill a room full of ninjas with your bare hands or anything, but you have to at least know how to duck.”

“Can you teach me to kill a room full of ninjas with my bare hands?” Brendon asked hopefully.

“Probably not tonight, no,” Bob said. “Break’s over. Get up. I’m going to show you a drop and roll.”

Brendon tried big puppy-dog eyes. It totally usually worked on Spencer.

Bob just stared at him. “I live with Gerard,” he said. “Stop that.”

Brendon let himself be pulled to his feet. “How am I going to explain all the bruises and contusions?” he asked.

“Tell them… I don’t know. Tell them you’re clumsy or something.” Bob shrugged. “Okay, hold your arm like that, and—” Bob really was a fucking ninja. One minute he was standing there, and the next minute he’d kicked Brendon’s feet out from under him and Brendon was flat on his back, with the wind knocked out of him, staring at the sky.

“Ow,” Brendon whimpered. That could have gone better. He was never going to impress Bob at this rate.

“So now that you know what’s coming, this time try and avoid it,” Bob said. He grinned.

It was a long night.

\ \ \

Everyone was asleep when Brendon got back, but he was so sore he had trouble climbing in to his bunk and he accidentally stepped on Jon’s hand. “Muh,” said Jon, and stuck his head out from behind the curtain. “What the fuck?” he asked. “It’s like, four in the morning already.”

“Yeah,” said Brendon, kicking off his sneakers and wiggling out of his jeans.

“You... You look kind of like you got beat up,” said Jon.

Brendon froze. “No,” he said after a second. “I uh. I fell down some stairs. You know me, I’m so clumsy. Ha ha ha.”

Jon frowned. “Be more careful,” he said, and rolled back in to his bunk.

Brendon was annoyed that that had worked, actually. He tripped over stuff sometimes, sure, but that was _exuberance_ , mostly, not _clutziness_. He dropped his jeans on the floor and tried to find a way to lie down that didn’t make him hurt.

His sidekick beeped to life. _b sez ur bad but not 2 bad_

All the glamour of being texted by Frank Iero was gone. _ur mom is not 2 bad_ Brendon wrote back, rolled over, and went to sleep.

\ \ \

Ryan glared. “I don’t get it,” he said, for the third time.

“Okay, Ry, when a mommy loves a daddy very much—” Spencer started, not looking up from his book.

Ryan threw a shoe at him. He missed by a mile, and Spencer laughed. “Who were you hanging out with, Brendon, and how did you fall down the stairs?” Ryan crossed his arms.

“I have friends in town,” Brendon said. “Mormon friends. You wouldn’t like them. And I fell down the stairs the way people fall down the stairs. My shoe was untied.” He shrugged, and then winced, because it hurt to move. The other problem was that he was _bursting_ with things he couldn’t tell Ryan, but he really wanted to. It made him twitchy, which made him seem suspicious.

“You fell down the stairs and then went for a run this morning,” Ryan said skeptically.

“It has been brought to my attention that I’m getting a little chubby,” Brendon said. “We don’t all have your girlish figure, Ross.”

“He was totally hooking up with groupies,” Jon said. He was trying to read over Spencer’s shoulder, and Spencer kept elbowing him in the side. Every time Spencer turned the page Jon complained, “I’m not done reading that yet!” and Spencer sighed and flipped back.

“I don’t hook up with groupies,” Brendon said piously. “That would be wrong. They’re all, like, ten years old.”

Spencer snorted. “You’re like ten years old.”

“I’m older than you are.”

“Prove it.”

No birth certificate was going to solve that argument, so Brendon punched Spencer in the thigh, instead. He tried to lead with his knuckles and put his shoulder behind it, like Bob said. Spencer put his book down for just a second and glared, which was a good sign.

Ryan pouted and flipped his scarf. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “I don’t know what you were doing, but I don’t believe you.”

Brendon tried not to be delighted that Ryan seemed sort of jealous. His crush on Ryan was really old news, and he was totally over it, but sometimes when Ryan smiled at him he still got butterflies in his stomach, and when Ryan got possessive it made him a tiny bit giddy. “Okay,” he said. “Whatever. Yo, Spence, want to play Guitar Hero?”

“Sure,” said Spencer, putting his book down.

“Hey!” Jon protested.

“Read it yourself,” Spencer said, getting off the couch. He grabbed the game case and the cords.

Ryan pointed a finger at Brendon. “I’m leaving, because if I have to hear those songs one more time I’ll kill everyone on this bus,” he said. How did he manage to sound so threatening in a monotone? “But I’m gonna be watching you.”

“Yeah,” said Brendon. “My ass is pretty distracting.”

Ryan made a huffy noise and stomped out. It was good that he was gone, though; Brendon was absolutely not going to crack and blurt out his giant secret. Unless Ryan wanted him to.

\ \ \

Panic!’s interviews had been cancelled for the afternoon and everyone was just hanging out on the bus, watching _Star Wars_ for the seven-hundredth time. Jon and Ryan were a little bit high, which meant they got giggly and fell asleep on each other before Luke even got off Tatooine. Brendon wished Ryan were sleeping on him, and then told himself firmly that he didn’t care.

Spencer always watched movies really intensely. When Brendon’s Sidekick beeped, all he said was, “Jesus, turn it off, Brendon, you’re not Ryan.”

The screen said _meet me outside_

Brendon frowned. _when?_

_rite now dumass_

Brendon looked up, half expecting to see Frank’s face in the window of the bus. That would have been creepy as shit. “I’m gonna go get some air,” he said to Spencer, who barely looked up. Brendon eased out from underneath Jon’s legs and headed for the door.

They were parked in a parking lot, which was mostly empty. Brendon stuck his head out and looked around, but he didn’t see anyone. Frank was probably pretty hard to spot from a distance, what with being a foot tall and all, but there was no one around with crazy tattoos. Brendon frowned at his sidekick.

“Hi-YAH!” hollered a voice right in his ear, and then Brendon was shoved face-first into the side of the bus, with his arm twisted up behind his back.

“Oww,” said Brendon.

“You were caught _totally_ off guard!” Frank said, delighted. “Sucks to be you. Also, dude, you have to ditch the glasses. Those are no good in case of emergency.”

Bob hadn’t shown him what to do in case of a sudden Frank attack. “Get _off_ ,” he said, trying to twist away. Frank just giggled. Brendon had seen _Miss Congeniality_ about twenty times, so he stomped backward, aiming for Frank’s instep.

“Motherfucker!” Frank yelped, letting go. “Ow!” He looked surprised and cautiously pleased. “That was pretty good, actually.”

Brendon tugged his t-shirt back down and pretended his heart hadn’t been racing in pure ‘what if Frank’s about to kill me’ terror. “Yeah, well, I’m tough,” he said.

Frank giggled. “You’re really not.”

“I could be,” Brendon insisted. God, he had to be at least as tough as Gerard Way, didn’t he? Sure, Bob was bad-ass, but they were not a band that was naturally intimidating, okay, no matter how much eyeliner they wore.

“But you’re not. I’m gonna show you some stuff. Come on.” He turned and jogged off across the parking lot.

“I have to be back by five,” Brendon said, running to catch up. “We have sound check.”

Frank grinned. “This won’t take too long,” he said. His grin was scarier than Bob’s, by far. “We’re just gonna blow some shit up.”

Brendon stopped. “You mean… Wait, _literally_ blow shit up?” he asked. He tried not to sound excited. He probably failed.

Frank looked back over his shoulder. His grin was getting nastier, somehow. “That’s the only way I roll.”

\\\\\

Brendon was totally incredulous that anyone let Frank Iero set off bombs, no matter how small and self-contained they were. Frank just enjoyed it _so much_.

“Okay, this is C4,” said Frank. “We’re not going to use much of it, because I think even your boyband might get suspicious if you went back with no eyebrows.”

“We’re not a boyband,” Brendon said, rolling his eyes.

“Watch,” said Frank. He did something with wires and buttons and then tossed the whole bundle in the air, and – BOOM.

“Cool!” Brendon said.

Frank giggled. “Okay, this time you push the button when I say ‘clear.’ It’ll be awesome. Ready?”

“What if someone’s walking by right now? And we kill them, and then the headline tomorrow is ‘Panic! in the Parking Lot’ and I go to jail?” Brendon asked. He played with the button for a second. He’d always sort of wished Panic! had more fire and explosions on stage.

Frank yelled, “Clear!”

Brendon bit his lip and pushed the button.

There was an _awesome_ explosion.

“Cool,” said Brendon again. “That was… Wow!”

“Yes!” Frank yelled. “This is the best part of being a secret spy.”

Brendon considered for a second. He didn’t want to sound childish or crazy around Frank, but… “Frank?” he said. “Can I blow _more_ stuff up?”

Frank beamed. “Of course,” he assured him, and handed Brendon more wires and things.

They went through the whole supply of C4 Frank had brought with him. Brendon didn’t ask how Frank had gotten it there, or why he wasn’t on tour with his band, because he was pretty sure he didn’t want to know the answer. Brendon almost got his eyebrows singed off one time when Frank yelled ‘clear’ too soon. It was totally fun. It would have been better if Spencer had been there, critiquing their explosion technique, or if Jon had been there, because everything was more fun with Jon Walker, or even if Ryan had been there, acting like he didn’t think it was cool at all. Ryan could be kind of a buzzkill. An amazing, funny, interesting, adorable buzzkill, though, so it barely counted at all.

\ \ \ \

“You’ve been acting really weird lately,” Ryan said suddenly, sticking his face in to Brendon’s bunk.

Brendon looked up from his laptop, closing the tab really quickly. Ryan didn’t need to know that Brendon was looking up pages on guns. It would probably have worried him. He looked worried enough already.

“I have?” Brendon asked. “Really?”

Ryan narrowed his eyes. “You’re up to something,” he said. “It’s not my birthday. It had better not be a fucking surprise party again.”

“One time, Ryan. It was one time. I promised it wouldn’t happen again.”

“I’m scarred for life. Tell me what you’re up to.”

Brendon tried to sit up, but he smacked his head against the roof of the bunk instead. “I’m not up to anything,” he insisted. Now his head hurt. He was already over-tired and a little grumpy. It had been two days since he’d heard from any of the My Chem guys. If they’d forgotten about him, he was going to cry.

Ryan wasn’t convinced. He crossed his arms. “You are completely up to something,” he said. “I know you, okay? I _know_ you.”

Brendon got a weird, tight feeling in his chest. If Ryan had really known him, he would have known about Brendon’s ridiculous crush. It was the only thing he’d ever managed to keep to himself in all the years he’d known Ryan.

“I’m really not up to anything,” Brendon said. He was only marginally good at lying, but it was going to have to be enough.

Ryan narrowed his eyes. “When I figure it out,” he said, “I’m gonna be pissed.”

“Yeah?” Brendon said. He needed this conversation to be over. “Well, we could always use a few more songs about betrayal and backstabbing, I guess.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Ryan demanded.

Brendon shrugged. “Or maybe some songs about paranoia. Y’know, if you feel like writing.”

Ryan just stared for a second. “You don’t even—What the fuck is—Fine. _Fine_.” He stomped in to the kitchen.

Jon rolled over and stuck his head out of his bunk. “What the fuck, dude?” he said.

“Ryan’s nosey,” Brendon said. “Whatever. I’m not up to anything.”

“You have been kind of squirrelly. What’s up with the fitness routine?”

“Nothing,” said Brendon firmly. “Life in a bus eating takeout and junk food all the time is getting to me, okay?”

Jon held his hands up. “Dude, chill,” he said. “Hostile much?”

Brendon felt bad. It wasn’t Jon’s fault he was becoming a trained killer spy ninja, or that he hadn’t been sleeping well, or that Ryan was a nosey bastard who had trampled all over Brendon’s heart by accident and never even noticed. “Sorry,” Brendon muttered. “I’m tired.”

“Get some sleep. We already have a moody diva on the bus. I can’t handle two of you wearing rose vests.” Jon leaned up and patted Brendon’s leg. “If something was up, you could tell me. You know that, right?”

Brendon wished that were true. Saving the world was awesome, but it was making things awkward with the band. “Thanks,’ he said. “You know I totally love you, right?”

“Yeah,” said Jon. “I know.”

That was a relief, at least.

\ \ \

They had the afternoon off and a hotel for the night. Ryan and Spencer went shoe shopping, although they didn’t call it that anymore. They used a code phrase, because Spencer was a little sensitive about his shoe problem. Brendon was exhausted. He flopped back on the bed, luxuriating in the fact that it wasn’t moving, and there was enough space to stretch his arms out, and the blanket didn’t smell like feet or cigarettes, and Ryan wasn’t glaring at him for no reason.

And then the door opened, and there was Mikey Way, carrying a laptop and looking bored. Ray was right behind him, with Bob and Gerard. They helped themselves to the other bed and the chair.

“Uh,” said Brendon. “Hi? Did I know this meeting was happening? Where’s Frank?”

“Interview,” said Gerard, sprawling on the bed. “We figured, hey, we have a night off, let’s check in with our favorite newbie.”

Brendon couldn’t tell if he was being insulted or not. “What if Ryan and Spencer come back from the petting zoo?” he asked. It wasn’t his fault Ryan got to make up the code words.

Everyone looked at Mikey, who shrugged totally nonchalantly. “I’m tracking their Sidekicks,” he said. “I know where they are. When they get back to the hotel I’ll let everyone know.”

Brendon gaped a little bit. “You’re… Are you tracking mine, too?”

“Of course.”

“I… You can… Wow,” said Brendon after a minute. “Holy crap.”

Ray laughed. “Mikey can do anything,” he said. “So we hear you want to help.”

“I do!” Brendon blurted. He caught himself before he sounded too childish. “I would love to help you guys do… I don’t know, whatever you’re doing. I know our band doesn’t really talk about it so much, but we have a social conscience too. We totally feel ways about stuff.”

“Oh, dude,” said Gerard, lighting a cigarette, “Ray knows more about you than you do. Seriously.”

Brendon wasn’t going to tell Gerard not to smoke in the room. Mikey had probably disabled the alarms with voodoo magic or something. “You looked me up?” he said uncertainly. “You could have just called.”

“Right,” Ray said, “but this way we know everything. I have your high school permanent record, your taxes from when you worked at the Smoothie Hut, every report card you ever got, the article from the church newspaper about your third-grade solo, the email you sent to your sister about how you’re totally in love with Ryan Ross—”

Brendon’s jaw dropped. “I never,” he squeaked.

Ray and Gerard burst out laughing. Mikey was busy texting someone, and Bob didn’t seem the type to enjoy someone else’s pain.

“It was a long time ago,” Brendon said quickly. “I was drunk. I was kidding. I was kidding while I was drunk.”

Gerard and Ray high-fived. “Too easy,” Ray said. “Okay, so let’s talk about saving the world.”

Brendon tried to get his heart to stop pounding. “Yeah,” he said. His throat was all weird and tight. He didn’t care if My Chemical Romance thought he had a crush on Ryan, as long as they understood it was way over. “How can I help?”

Gerard took a long drag off his cigarette. “I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” he said. “But… Well. This weekend we have a mission and Mikey and Ray can’t make it.”

Brendon was so excited. “Are we saving the world?” he asked. “I am totally pysched for that, you have no idea.”

“We’re breaking and entering,” Gerard said. “Nothing too stressful for your first time, dude.”

“Oh,” said Brendon, the tiniest bit disappointed. “That makes sense.”

Gerard waved his hands around like a crazy person. “See, this is what’s fucking wrong with American culture,” he said. “You can’t just be happy about what you’re good at, and be comfortable with yourself. You always have to prove yourself, all the fucking time. No wonder we’re a nation that’s addicted to happy pills and alcohol. Why can’t we all accept who we are?”

Ray was patiently completely ignoring Gerard, so Brendon decided that was probably the safest route. “I want to help out on the breaking and entering,” he said. “I’m really stealth. I own tons of black.”

“I’m gonna show you how to shoot a gun and stuff first,” Ray said. Brendon tried not to look too excited. “And Mikey needs to mess with your Sidekick.”

Brendon looked doubtful. “Beyond just using it to stalk me, you mean?” he asked. “Because I don’t know what else you can do.”

“Watch,” said Mikey, holding up his wrist.

The bed Brendon was lying on burst in to flame.

“Holy _fuck_!” Brendon yelped, jumping to his feet. “How did you _do_ that?”

“Watch,” Mikey repeated, rolling his eyes.

It still took Brendon a second. “Oh,” he said. “That’s… That’s impossible. I mean, I’m pretty sure.”

Gerard shrugged and used a blanket to beat out the little fire. He looked totally unphased by the mysterious fire and the possibility that they’d all burn to death. Brendon figured he was probably used to lighting accidental fires if he smoked lying down all the time. “He uses focused lasers,” Gerard said around his cigarette. “Do you have a coffee maker in here?”

“Sidekick,” Mikey said, sounding bored. He held out a hand.

Brendon handed it over reluctantly. It was like handing over his diary or something. Except Ray had apparently already read every email he’d ever sent, so fuck it. “What are you going to do to it?” he asked.

Mikey looked at him. “You’ll find out,” he said tonelessly.

That sounded ominous, but Brendon didn’t really have time to worry, because Ray was standing up. “C’mon,” he said. “You’ve never shot a gun before, right? This is going to take some time.”

Brendon was simultaneously excited and terrified. “Really?” he said. “That’s… That’s pretty cool, I guess.” It was hard to sound detached and cool when you felt like running around the room screaming.

“Don’t burn the place down while we’re gone,” Ray ordered.

Gerard gestured with one hand, waving a cigarette around wildly. That was not the greatest guarantee that the hotel would still be standing when they got back, in Brendon’s opinion. “I’m gonna call Frank,” said Gerard. “Let him know what’s up.”

Ray looked at Bob, and they rolled their eyes in perfect unison. “Having phone sex in someone else’s room is gross,” said Ray.

“Especially when your brother is right there,” Bob agreed. “I’m coming with.”

Brendon blinked. Did that mean Frank and Gerard were… Holy _shit_ , My Chemical Romance had a lot of secrets. If it was possible for them, would it be possible for other people in bands to date on the down-low? Brendon had always wondered about Pete and Patrick, frankly. Not that Brendon had any interest in it personally, of course.

“Where are we going to go shooting?” he asked. “I don’t want to shoot anyone by accident. Oh, hey, do you guys have one of those firing ranges with the cardboard cut outs, like in _Men in Black_? That was so cool, I will totally not shoot any of the kids—”

“How would we carry that around?” Bob asked. “Jesus, you talk a lot. C’mon.”

Brendon thought that was pretty unfair. Bob lived with _Gerard and Frank_. There was no way Brendon talked more than the two of them. At least not put together, c’mon.

///

  


“No,” said Ray patiently. “Try it again.”

Ray had the patience of a saint. In fact, Brendon suspected Ray had all the patience that Ryan and Spencer were supposed to have been born with. Clearly there had been some kind of mix up.

“Like this?” Brendon asked. He grabbed at the gun Ray was holding, because in an ideal world he would have somehow gotten it into his own hand, reversed it, and aimed it back at Ray before Ray could stop him.

In this world Brendon’s palms were a little sweaty and he knocked the gun on the floor, where it skittered away, instead.

“No,” said Ray patiently. “Try it again.”

“Four hundredth time’s the charm,” Bob said helpfully.

Brendon was in danger of losing his shit. He didn’t know why the hotel had a soundproof, totally secret shooting-range in the basement, or how MCR had known about it, but it was a good place to start yelling. And if Brendon was going to lose his shit in front of any of the guys from that band, better these two than Frank and Mikey, who’d make fun, or Gerard, who’d lecture.

“Listen,” Brendon said, putting his hands on his hips, “I am _dexterous_. I play piano, I play guitar, these fingers are practically lethal weapons. There is _no fucking reason_ I shouldn’t be able to do this.”

“Right,” Ray agreed soothingly. “So why don’t you try again?”

Bob muttered something that might have been “pointless.” Brendon made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and picked up the gun. He’d taken some practice shots, and to absolutely no one’s surprise he was pretty terrible. Bob insisted he keep trying, though, until it was muscle memory in case of emergency. “Okay,” Brendon said. “Show me again.”

One second Brendon was holding the gun, the next Ray had it, pointed right at Brendon’s head. Ninja-fu was obviously something their entire band had practiced. “Right,” Brendon said determinedly. “I can totally do that.” He tried to move his hand like Ray had.

The gun clattered to the floor.

“Fuck!” Brendon yelled. “This fucking sucks! I… Damn it!” He dropped sulkily to the floor, crossing his arms. Pouting like a little kid was definitely not the way to convince Ray and Bob to let him come on their break-and-enter mission. It was just, Brendon was used to being _good_ at things.

Bob sighed. “This is no big deal,” he said. “The odds are you’ll never need to use this. Seriously. We’re going to try and keep you and the guys with guns as far away from each other as possible.”

“Fine, but… I want to do it _right_ ,” Brendon complained. “When I try things, I can usually _do_ them.”

“This is something new,” Ray said cheerfully. “Don’t worry about it so much.”

Bob’s phone beeped. “Mikey says we should head back,” he said. “Ryan and Spencer are on their way here. The middle school dance must be over.”

“You could be a little bit nice,” Brendon bitched. “We aren’t that much younger than you guys.”

Bob and Ray exchanged a look. “What?” Brendon asked. “Seriously, what?”

“We’re not allowed to say. Just… Fucking _preschool_ ,” said Bob, and neither one of them would explain further.

\ \ \

Spencer knew a lot about his bandmates. He’d spent countless hours with them on the bus, after all, and sometimes he felt a lot like he was watching some kind of fucked-up nature documentary. Like _Planet Earth_ , only it was _Planet Panic! at the Disco_. Instead of adorable baby polar bears and penguins he got Brendon, who laughed so hard sometimes he fell off the couch. Instead of crazy-looking birds of paradise he got Ryan and his insane make up. Instead of sleepy sunning lizards he got Jon, who was currently napping back at the hotel.

Instead of ever being able to turn it _off_ he got to live it every day.

One of the things Spencer knew about his band, right at that moment, was that Brendon was up to something. He knew it partially because Brendon was acting really weird, and had been for a couple of weeks. He also knew it because Ryan _would not fucking shut up about it_ already.

Spencer loved Ryan like a brother. He’d loved Ryan when he was all twisted up in high school, and he’d loved Ryan when he’d gone through his Backstreet Boys phase, and he’d loved Ryan when he started text-messaging Pete Wentz all the time. Right at that moment, though, Spencer wanted to punch Ryan in the mouth so badly he could taste it.

“All I’m saying,” Ryan said, for honest to god the seventh time since they’d decided to head back to the hotel, “is Brendon’s up to something.”

“Yeah,” said Spencer. He clenched his teeth. “Got it. Brendon’s up to something.”

“I mean, he’s being furtive. Brendon’s not furtive. Brendon is the opposite of furtive. Brendon is blatant, okay?”

Brendon was totally blatant, Spencer agreed, mostly in the way he watched Ryan with his heart in his eyes all the time. Spencer loved his band, but he was really tired of watching all the epic emotional stupidity.

“If he’s in trouble, he should tell us,” Ryan went on, sounding grumpy. Grumpy for Ryan, at least, but Spencer had years of picking up on Ryan’s moods. “Or if he’s up to something, he should tell us. A band is a brotherhood. I can’t go on stage if I don’t know what my lead singer is up to. We have to trust each other.”

The thing about Ryan was that he was just as blatant as Brendon, in totally different ways. He didn’t stare longingly after Brendon when he left the room. He didn’t sigh wistfully, although to Brendon’s credit he’d mostly stopped that after Spencer had coughed meaningfully a few hundred times. Ryan just got _fixated_. He was constantly talking about Brendon, and where Brendon went, and who Brendon saw, and why Brendon was doing the things he did.

“I trust Brendon,” Spencer said firmly. He hadn’t found any shoes, the evening was a total waste. He could have stayed in the hotel and gotten high with Jon. At least then Ryan’s Brendon-related meltdown would have been funny.

“But how can we trust Brendon if he’s not telling us what he’s up to?” Ryan demanded. “Right? Right, Zack?”

Zack shrugged. Zack was really good at tuning Ryan out. It was harder for Spencer to do when Ryan got all pouty and started repeating things eight or nine times in a row.

They waved to the concierge and got in the elevator. Ryan crossed his arms and looked sullen. He was wearing a top hat, which ruined the effect a little bit, but Spencer wasn’t going to tell him that. Spencer supported Ryan’s weird hat fetish. When Ryan was fixated on hats he wasn’t trying to make Jon wear frilly vests. Jon looked stupid in frilly vests. More so than Ryan and Spencer and Brendon, even.

The elevator doors dinged open. Ryan stomped down the hall and threw open the door to his and Brendon’s shared room.

Brendon was standing in the middle of the room, frowning at the mirror. That wasn’t so odd. What _was_ odd was that he was miming holding a gun, and he was clearly giving himself a pep talk. “I can do this,” he was saying insistently.

Also odd? The ugly comforter on his bed had a giant burn mark on it, and the coffee maker was on, half-full. Brendon wasn’t allowed to drink coffee at night.

“What the fuck?” said Ryan.

Brendon jumped. He looked incredibly guilty. Of what, Spencer had no idea. Ryan’s face got really angry. Well, angry for _him_ , but Spencer and Brendon were both experts on Ryan’s mad face, for totally different reasons.

“Hi,” said Brendon. “Find any good shoes?”

Brendon was _totally_ up to something. The way he bit his lip and smiled unconvincingly and wouldn’t look at either of them was a dead give away.

Ryan pointed at Brendon for a minute, then turned on his heel and stormed back in to the hall.

Spencer was honestly _so_ tired of this shit. Now he was going to have to talk Ryan out of a seven-hour long bubble bath, or writing a song that tried to rhyme something with ‘inopportune.’ “I’m not going to be sorry _at all_ when I have to punch both of you,” Spencer told Brendon. Then he chased Ryan down the hall.

\ \ \

Brendon elbowed his way in to the first shower after the show, grabbed his best black jeans and hoodie, and slipped out of the venue while Spencer and Ryan were still complaining about who had used whose shampoo.

Frank was waiting in a van out front. He was wearing a baseball cap and a sweatshirt, but he still looked exactly like Frank Iero. Brendon figured Panic! fans would probably know who he was. Brendon was a little worried about getting mobbed himself, so he jumped into the van and slouched.

“Hey,” said Brendon. “We should go quickly.”

“Yeah,” said Frank, and peeled out of the parking lot.

The van was old and kind of grungy and smelled like beer and pot. The plastic upholstery was about half masking tape. “Nice ride,” said Brendon.

“You can make fun when your little feet reach the pedals,” said Frank.

That was totally unfair; Frank was barely taller than Brendon was. Brendon decided not to argue, though. Frank really liked blowing things up. “Are we going far?” Brendon asked instead. “And how do you guys always manage to be wherever I am?”

“Not really, and because Mikey invents a lot of helpful stuff,” Frank said.

Brendon didn’t get what that meant, entirely. He was vibrating with excitement; his foot was bouncing up and down and he couldn’t stop it. “Okay, mister mysterious,” Brendon said. “Don’t actually tell me anything that might tell me where we’re going or what we’re doing. That’s a really great plan.”

Frank looked annoyed, and then contemplative, and then annoyed again. “Fine,” he said. “What’s happening is we’re going in to get some papers. I can’t tell you what they are, because if you know you’re in a lot of danger. You’re not going to do shit except tag along and try not to break anything or set off any alarms. No guns, no fighting, no nothing. In fact, maybe you should wait in the car.”

“Dude, the whole point is that I want to help!”

“Yeah, I know. Mikey says… Well. Anyway. I was against you coming out with us tonight, but Gerard and Mikey overruled me. You better be grateful.”

Brendon was grateful. He also wondered why Gerard and Mikey thought it was a good idea for him to come along. It seemed suspicious, especially considering how badly Brendon had done at nearly everything Bob or Ray had shown him.

“So, did Mikey tell you about the Sidekick?” Frank asked suddenly, grinning.

“Uh. He said he installed some stuff.” Brendon was still trying to get used to the idea that Mikey could track him every single place he went all day. It wasn’t that strange, really, but it was a little disturbing to think that Mikey Way knew more about what he was doing all day than the members of his own band. In particular, one especially stupid member to whom Brendon was considering not speaking. Not that Ryan even knew that, because he seemed to be avoiding Brendon, too. Whatever.

Frank giggled again. “No, dude, there’s a special key combination that – He didn’t tell you? Oh, that’s hilarious. What if you hit it by accident?”

“What?” Brendon demanded. “Seriously, what?”

“Let’s just say, the rest of the band better duck and cover. Heh.”

Brendon stared at his Sidekick for a minute in undisguised horror. “It blows up, right?” he said. “Fuck. Mikey turned my phone in to a bomb?”

“Only if you press the right keys,” Frank said. “Don’t worry.”

That was _so_ not comforting _at all_. “Can he undo it?” Brendon asked.

Frank glanced over at him. “What if you get in trouble and you need an explosion to get you out at the last second, like MacGuyver?”

“Right, but—”

“Dude, I’m just kidding. That never actually happens.”

“Then why did he turn my Sidekick in to a bomb?”

Frank couldn’t stop giggling. “Mikey and I think it’s pretty funny when things blow up. Don’t you?”

Brendon couldn’t think of a single reply for that.

\\\\\

“You,” said Gerard firmly, “follow us and don’t do anything else.”

“Right, but—”

“Don’t talk. Don’t bump. Don’t even breathe unless Bob says it’s okay.”

Brendon looked at Bob. Bob shrugged. “Breathing’s cool with me,” he said.

“I want to do something, though,” said Brendon.

“Don’t get seen by anyone,” Gerard said. “How about that?” My Chemical Romance wore a lot of black anyway, and Gerard was pretty in to doing kooky things with makeup, so they didn’t actually look that different all dolled up to get ready for a break and enter than they did to go on stage and play.

Frank pulled Gerard aside and started whispering something to him. He was pointing and gesturing at Brendon a _lot_. Gerard had his arms crossed and was shaking his head. Brendon fidgeted. “So, uh,” said Brendon uncertainly. “Do you guys do this often?”

Bob squinted. “This?” he said. “Not this, exactly. Stuff _like_ this sometimes.”

Frank punched Gerard, not especially hard, but Gerard made a squeaking noise and started rubbing his arm exaggeratedly. Frank gestured twice as wildly, but Brendon still couldn’t make out the words.

“Where are we?” Brendon asked. They were in the shadows at the hidden edge of the parking lot of an industrial complex; there were all kinds of dark, empty office buildings with glass windows that were staring at him. Brendon shivered.

“A place that has some information we want,” Bob said.

Gerard pretended to ignore Frank for a second and lit a cigarette. The match seemed incredibly bright in the shadows where they were standing. “—just saying,” Frank said, forgetting to whisper, “that for all we know, we need him in one piece and this could be a big problem.”

“And for all we know,” Gerard snapped, “he has to come along or it’ll never happen.”

Frank made a totally disgusted noise. “Fine,” he said. “But if anything goes wrong--”

“Mikey says it won’t. If you take the long view.”

“Mikey’s been wrong, you know.”

Brendon was totally sure they were talking about him. He just couldn’t figure out why. “What’s going on?” he whispered to Bob.

Bob shrugged. “Nothing you need to worry about.” He considered for a second. “Yet.”

That was ominous. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Brendon demanded.

“We’re going in,” Gerard said. “Everyone ready?”

Brendon felt a little sick. “Just like that?” he said. “You don’t have any… Any… I don’t know, anti-laser gear or knock-out gas or cigarette lighters that are secretly machine guns?”

Frank looked so disgusted. “No,” he said. “That stuff is stupid. Just follow along, got it?”

Brendon didn’t feel at all confident. “Sure,” he said.

“Okay then,” Gerard said. Brendon wished they could vote Bob captain of the expedition. Gerard seemed likely to get distracted halfway through by social injustice and start lecturing the security guards.

Gerard took off toward the building, and Frank followed him. Brendon hesitated – just for a second, he couldn’t help it, his heart was beating like crazy and he felt like he was going to throw up. Bob made a little throat-clearing noise, and frowned. Brendon took a deep breath and took off after Gerard, with Bob hot on his heels.

It turned out MCR had some kind of sixth sense for avoiding streetlamps and video cameras. Brendon looked up and saw them whirring over the doors. Gerard stopped dead, and Brendon ran straight in to Frank’s back. They waited a couple of seconds and took off to the door. Frank punched something in to the keypad by the door and it swung open no problem. “That’s all Ray,” Bob whispered.

They snuck in – who knew Gerard way was such a good sneaker? – and Brendon followed them down the hall and up the stairs. They stopped a couple of times for Frank to fiddle with key pads and open doors with special laser security on them. They went up to a deserted hallway on a floor that looked like every other floor and hallway Brendon had seen so far. Frank and Gerard had a quick, nearly-silent gestured conversation that ended with them picking a door and going in. There was nothing inside but filing cabinets and computers, and Frank booted one up while Gerard started unlocking drawers.

Bob stood by the door, arms crossed. It was too dark in the room for Brendon to make out exactly what Gerard and Frank were doing, so he had to settle for crossing his arms and standing next to Bob, trying to look confident and calm. His heart was going to jump out of his throat.

It felt like it took _forever_. Brendon got fidgety, but Bob turned to him and frowned, which made him stop. Bob frowning was still scary. Brendon settled for tapping his fingers really quickly against his leg. Gerard was looking through files and Frank was doing something with a thumb drive. Brendon bounced on the balls of his feet for a second, remembered Bob, and made himself slouch against the wall instead.

“Can I…” Brendon whispered finally, because _seriously_ , they had been in the room for a long time, surely someone was going to notice soon, “can I do something?”

“Shhh,” said Frank, tossing an annoyed look over his shoulder.

“But—”

“Stealth,” Bob whispered, putting his hand on Brendon’s arm and looking stern. Brendon tried really hard not to say anything. Mostly because the more he wiggled the tighter Bob’s hand got, and he was a little afraid that A) Bob was going to leave bruises he wouldn’t be able to explain to the guys, or B) Bob would snap him like a twig if he didn’t stop fidgeting.

“They’re coming,” said Gerard suddenly, looking at his watch. What the fuck his _watch_ had to do with anything Brendon had no idea, but his pulse, which had already been thumping along at “dance party” speed was suddenly at “coke-fueled frenzy.”

“Shouldn’t we go?” Brendon whispered. No one moved. It was possible Gerard and Frank hadn’t heard, but Bob definitely had. “Um,” said Brendon after a minute. “Guys?”

“Shut up, I’m not done,” said Frank, typing.

Brendon wanted to open the door and stick his head out to look down the hallway, but Bob was between him and the door, and he hadn’t moved. Brendon wasn’t going to fidget. He absolutely was not going to fidget.

Gerard had half his arm and his entire head stuck in the filing cabinet. “Guys,” Brendon whispered again. The longer they waited the more nervous he got, and the louder his whisper was. “Seriously, if someone’s coming, shouldn’t – ugh.” Bob’s hand closed really hard around Brendon’s upper arm, and he stopped talking because he was pretty sure there was no blood flowing to his hand anymore.

“Shit,” said Gerard suddenly, not really whispering. “Brendon, come hold this for a second.” He threw a pile of papers over his shoulder. Half the pile ended up on the floor. Gerard flung himself further in to the drawer, standing on his tip toes.

Brendon knelt to pick up all the files and papers and photographs that had fallen all over the floor. What in hell were they doing there, and—

Brendon froze, staring. “Uh,” he said after a second, in a strangled whisper. “Gerard?”

“I’m done!” Frank announced, forgetting to whisper. “C’mon!” He grabbed Gerard’s arm and hauled him away from the cabinet.

“Got it,” Gerard said, rolling something up and stuffing it in his jacket. He and Bob grabbed all the papers out of Brendon’s hands and re-filed them quickly.

Brendon was still feeling frozen. “That was,” he tried, but it was hard to make a sentence that didn’t sound totally insane. “Was that a picture of _Brent_?”

“We have to go,” Gerard said, grabbing Brendon and pulling him to his feet. Brendon didn’t want to go anywhere, not until someone explained where they were, and what they were looking for, and why in hell there was a picture of Panic!’s ex-bassist in those drawers.

“But—” Brendon said. Bob was behind him, with his hands on Brendon’s shoulders, shoving him out the door, and Gerard and Frank were right ahead of him. Gerard had Brendon by the wrist, and Brendon realized suddenly that he was being herded. They hadn’t told him anything on _purpose_ , there were layers and layers of shit going on that no one had told him about yet. He couldn’t decide if he was more scared or pissed off.

“Coming,” Gerard whispered. They flanked the wall. Brendon was pretty sure he could hear footsteps either downstairs on the other side.

They made it to the staircase. There was a man there in a uniform; he had a second to look startled, but just one, and then suddenly there was Bob and the guy was on the floor. Brendon hadn’t even had time to be scared. “Holy shit,” he whispered anyway. Gerard and Frank hadn’t slowed down, they were already on the next landing.

“Come on,” Bob ordered softly, taking off after them. Brendon couldn’t get himself to move – the guy on the floor was just lying there. Had Bob killed him or just knocked him out? That was a gun the guy was holding. What if he’d shot Gerard or Frank? What if he’d shot at _Brendon_? His feet finally got the message, and Brendon took off down the stairs.

He was far enough behind that he had to run, and it was hard to go down that many stairs that quickly when your whole body felt numb. Brendon stumbled and banged too hard in to the door on the next landing, which swung open. He overbalanced and fell forward on to his knees in the hallway.

Brendon looked up and saw someone coming toward him. It was a man in a suit, and he was frowning and running, and Brendon saw his eyes widen. Brendon scrambled back to his feet, and threw himself through the door and back in to the stairwell, tripping down the stairs so fast that he banged straight in to Bob’s back.

Bob didn’t slow down, but he did manage to throw a confused look over his shoulder. Brendon opened his mouth to say ‘someone’s coming and he saw me,’ and then swallowed it instead. They didn’t need to know he’d fucked up in the ten seconds they hadn’t been watching him like rock-and-roll babysitters. “Hurry,” he said instead, pushing past Bob and after Frank and Gerard.

All Brendon was thinking was _don’t trip again, don’t trip, keep going_ , trying to run as quickly and quietly as everyone else. They burst in to the parking lot, and Brendon could hear people shouting behind them from the window. They ran flat-out across the asphalt, which was awesome because Brendon turned out to be faster than Gerard and Bob, and as fast as Frank. It was nice to finally be doing something well, even if it was just running until he thought he might throw up.

Frank threw the van door open and Brendon threw himself in, followed by Bob, and after a second Gerard, huffing crazily. They didn’t even have the door fully closed before the tires were squealing and they were out of the parking lot. There were people following them, but they were on foot, and Brendon leaned his head back against the seat rest and took a couple of deep, gulping breaths.

“Shit,” was all Gerard said. No one else said anything. Brendon was too tired and shaky from left over adrenaline to babble at them. He closed his eyes and tried to think calming thoughts. If Gerard wasn’t breaking the silence, Brendon wouldn’t either. Maybe this secret spy lifestyle was a little more than he’d bargained for. He couldn’t just _say_ that, though. Not when he’d worked so hard to get taken along. He ended up forgetting to ask whether or not he’d actually seen a picture of Brent, and if so, what the fuck was going on.

\ \ \

It was a horrible combination of instinct and accident, and Brendon was never going to get over it as long as he lived.

Ryan Ross walked really quietly, which was not Brendon’s fault. Brendon was concentrating really hard on his laptop, which was also not Brendon’s fault.

So what actually happened was Ryan came up behind Brendon quietly and put his hand on Brendon’s shoulder, and all of Bob’s muscle-memory training kicked in and Brendon grabbed Ryan’s hand and twisted, but he didn’t remember what he was doing quite right, because he tripped over Ryan’s long fucking legs and they both ended up in a pile on the floor.

Not a pile, exactly. More like, Ryan was flat on his back, wide-eyed, and Brendon was on top of him. Nose-to-nose with him, actually. He could smell what kind of sandwich Ryan had eaten for lunch because Ryan was breathing on him.

Brendon’s heart raced, partially from the adrenaline rush of accidentally flipping Ryan over, and partially because Ryan was staring at him from about a centimeter away. Lying on top of Ryan Ross was… Um. _Awesome_. And also _horrible_. For the same reason, actually.

“Uh,” said Ryan. “Brendon? You’re… On me.”

“Yeah,” said Brendon. He scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could, trying not to accidentally knee Ryan anywhere or let Ryan know that his heart was racing and his body was reacting in other, way less acceptable ways. He laughed a little shakily. “That was weird, huh?”

Ryan sat up and brushed himself off. He was glaring suspiciously, but that had been his default for a while now. “What is up with you lately?” Ryan asked. “You’ve been a total freak.”

“I have not,” Brendon pouted. He knew he was pouting, and he hated it about himself, but he also couldn’t stop. Ryan was so mean sometimes, even if it was accidental. It sucked that he couldn’t say “I’m learning to be a ninja, so shut up or I’ll kick your ass, Ross.” Ryan would have been totally impressed, once he stopped laughing.

“Yeah, you have,” said Ryan. “I don’t get it. Why don’t you just tell us what’s going on? You’re shitty at keeping secrets.”

Ryan was right, but it made Brendon want to tell him even less. “Yeah, well, maybe I can’t tell you,” Brendon said, which inadvertently made it sound like he didn’t trust Ryan. Ryan flinched a little. “There’s nothing going on, anyway,” Brendon insisted. “And even if there were, I wouldn’t tell you, except there’s not.”

“But… Brendon, it’s _us_. You tell us everything.” Brendon thought maybe Ryan sounded genuinely hurt. It was hard to tell because of the monotone problem.

Not everything. Not quite. Brendon couldn’t say that, either. He stared at his hands for a second, and then shrugged.

“Fine,” Ryan snapped. “Be that way. I’m not asking again, okay? I’m done with this bullshit elementary school game.” He stood up and brushed himself off and flounced out of the bus.

“Dude,” said Spencer, sticking his head in from the kitchen. “Did you just flip Ryan?” He sounded both incredulous and slightly awed.

“Yeah,” said Brendon, “and if you don’t mind your own fucking business I’ll do it to you, too.”

Spencer snorted, “I’d like to see you try,” but he shut up.

\\\\\\\

They were really busy with shows and traveling and Brendon got too tired to worry about MCR and their weird-ass secrets. It was a bigger balancing act than usual, keeping the reporters happy and the crowds energized, and the band unsuspicious. Minus Ryan, who was totally pretending to ignore him, which sucked.

Thank god there was a day off coming up; Brendon really needed to call Gerard and Frank and find out why there had been a picture of Brent on their b&e mission. He was debating telling them that he’d seen someone in the hallway. Gerard had been pretty adamant that he not run in to anyone. Which, oops.

After the show Brendon half-expected a message from MCR on his phone; he sat in the dressing room feeling sweaty and gross and waiting for the shower so he could wash seventeen layers of makeup off his face and put on jeans that fit. Well. Not _fit_ , exactly; they were skin-tight. But at least he was used to it.

His phone trilled to life. The message from Frank said _Come to the staircase right away_. Brendon looked around furtively, but Ryan was talking to Zack and Spencer about his big plans to incorporate more bells and mandolins into the stage show. Jon was showering. Brendon stuck the phone in his pocket and snuck out.

There was only one staircase between the dressing room and the parking lot, and My Chem would have been crazy to go anywhere else with all the rabid fans around.

He didn’t hear anyone in the hallway. He didn’t see anyone, either. He got to the second landing and stopped, confused, and that was all he had time to do before he thought he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and then everything went black.

\\\\\\\\\

“Tell us what you know about the Way brothers.”

Brendon blinked a couple of times. His arms weren’t doing what he wanted them to, which was rub his eyes and maybe the back of his head, because it _hurt_. Everything was fuzzy and off-center.

“I said, tell us about the Way brothers.” He didn’t know that voice, and he wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Strange.

Someone slapped him across the face. Brendon was so surprised he couldn’t do anything but gasp. He blinked his eyes open for real — he hadn’t realized they weren’t open before. He thought for a minute that things were out of focus or he’d gone blind, and then he realized that the room was dark except for a light shining right in his eyes. Whoever was talking was lurking in the dark.

“What the fuck?” Brendon managed. His voice wasn’t working right. He looked down. He couldn’t move his hands because they were _tied to the chair_ , and if this was some kind of fucked up MCR initiation-slash-test he was going to tell them to go to hell and quit.

“The Way brothers.” Brendon had definitely never heard that voice before. “You’ve been working with them. What have they told you?”

“Nothing,” said Brendon honestly. This didn’t seem like a test. He squirmed around a little, trying to see if he could move his hands. He couldn’t.

There was a minute of silence, and then – “Fuck,” Brendon said. “Ow! Mother _fucker_.” He tried to jerk away from being poked in the thigh with something sharp. That was that a _needle_ , he was he being injected with something. He was totally going to die. There was nowhere to move, though, and someone had his face tightly in their hand. Brendon started hyperventilating.

“You’re going to tell us everything you know about them,” said the voice.

Brendon pulled his face as far away as he could. “Fine,” he gritted. “They were born in New Jersey. They wrote an album about their grandmother. Gerard likes dragons and squid and Joan of Arc and making out with Frank onstage. Mikey plays bass. They both play in a band called My Chemical Romance – _Ow_.”

“Your sarcasm isn’t appreciated.”

His sarcasm was kind of the only thing keeping him going. Brendon was really, actually, honestly scared. He hadn’t been awake enough at first, and then he hadn’t understood what was happening. Now there was just whoever this person was, and whatever he was injecting Brendon with. Brendon had seen Alias. Secret interrogations and injections were never good news.

“You asked and I answered,” said Brendon. “That’s what I know about them. I’m serious.”

“I have very little patience for this kind of thing. Tell us about their _other_ activities.”

“You mean like when they make out in private?” Brendon said, and then his brain caught up a little more. He blurted, “You hijacked my phone! It was spelled right, oh my god, I should have _known_ that wasn’t Frank.” Those hands grabbed him again, maybe with something metal this time, and Brendon winced and bit his tongue, because it _hurt_ , like being pinched by Spencer, but a million times worse.

MCR hadn’t said what to do in case of interrogation by bad guys, but Brendon had a pretty good idea. The major thing was not to say anything important, and that was easy, because Brendon didn’t _know_ anything important. They had mentioned this might happen. He wished he’d believed them. He wished he’d never insisted on tagging along.

Whoever it was stepped back a little bit. It would have been a lot less scary if he’d known who he was talking to. Brendon made himself stop gasping and take a deep breath. His heart was beating a million miles a minute and banging in his ears. He wondered if that was an effect of whatever he’d just been shot up with, or if it was just nerves. He hoped it was nerves.

“Fine, play dumb,” said the voice. “How about this. Tell me why _you’re_ so important.”

That was a question Brendon had heard a million times in a million different ways, although never quite that flatly stated. “I’m a rock star,” Brendon said. “Maybe you’ve heard? Our album sold pretty well.”

He got slapped again for that, but maybe he deserved it. “Tell me why you’re so important,” said the voice again. “What are you going to do? Why do they want you?”

Brendon had gone from scared and confused to scared and totally, utterly lost. “I don’t know,” he said. “What am I going to do when? Why does who want me? The fans? The band?”

His hands were starting to tingle, and the room – he assumed it was a room, all he could see was the light – was spinning. The inside of his head felt big and echoey and spinny. “Tell us why your band is the one they talk about,” said the voice insistently. Was it one person or a chorus? Brendon was losing track. “Tell us what’s going to happen.”

“We’re pretty young to be this famous,” Brendon tried. His mouth felt really dry. He tried to wiggle his fingers but he couldn’t find them. “Ryan’s lyrics are really good. We—”

He got slapped. Again. He barely felt it, though. There was a hand on his face maybe, but it might not have been. His eyes might have been closing, he wasn’t sure. Voices were asking – yelling – questions at him, but he didn’t know what they were saying. His voice seemed to be answering, which was weird. Brendon wondered what he was saying. He was probably saying something about Ryan. If they asked about Ryan he’d tell them. He used to have a crush, he’d say, but he’d gotten over it. He used to think that Ryan pretty much hung the moon and the stars in the sky, even if he was a total bitch about his songs and his lyrics. Sometimes Ryan got so fixated on what he thought he wanted that he couldn’t hear it wasn’t working. Brendon loved – had loved – the way he got so worked up.

He was willing to tell them all about that. How he always tried to switch to share a room with Spencer, but Spencer wanted to room with Jon, he wasn’t fooling anyone. Jon could be persuaded to change, though. Ryan wandering around in his boxers and t-shirt before he got ready for bed was too much for Brendon to handle, no matter how over his crush he claimed to be. Claimed? Was. Definitely was. Ryan was so cute. And Ryan was smart. Ryan was really secretive about stuff sometimes. And Ryan—

“Jesus Christ. Maybe he really doesn’t know,” said the mystery voice.

Brendon wanted to tell him that he didn’t, honest, but he couldn’t get his mouth to work.

“Fine,” said the voice. “Then we might as well. And then later, if he still won’t talk, you can just kill him. That should solve things nicely.”

That was fucking ominous. Brendon tried to blink. When had his eyes closed? He managed to pry them a tiny bit open. Just enough to see a holding a gun. Ray had been over that a couple of times. A hand holding a gun pointed at him was bad. There wasn’t much he could do about it, even if he could have moved; he still hadn’t worked out that grab-the-gun-from-your-hand move. Could even Bob have managed it with his hands tied? Brendon voted yes. Bob was a fucking ninja. His eyes sank shut.

The gun fired. Things hurt. Then they went black again.

\\\\\\\

Brendon’s head was spinning when he woke up, and having Gerard Way’s weird face an inch away from his nose didn’t help. He blinked a few times. Were they somewhere that was moving?

“Ummmm,” Brendon said. “I’m... Am I still alive?” He tried to move his fingers. He was definitely not tied up anymore. They were tingling, though. Brendon’s head really _hurt_.

“Sorta,” said Mikey derisively. Gerard shushed him and, thankfully, sat up so he wasn’t quite as close to Brendon.

“My head,” Brendon complained. He was trying to work through the details of just what the fuck had happened. “I got kidnapped. Didn’t I? You weren’t there. Owww.” His head was killing him and everything else felt weird. Gerard hovered over him. Brendon was getting worried he might throw up on one of Ryan’s heroes. “I think I got shot, you guys. Did anyone check to see if I got shot?”

Gerard shook his head. “You didn’t get shot,” he said. Mikey coughed. “Well. Not exactly. You got shot. Just, with a ray gun.”

Brendon stared.

“There are these awesome ray guns, see. They like... They freeze people. Or knock them out. And then afterwards you feel all groggy and bad.”

Brendon felt groggy and utterly miserable. “But _you_ didn’t shoot me, right?” he said. “So who the fuck did? They wanted to know about Mikey. And you. I have no idea what I told them.”

“That’s okay,” said Gerard, although Mikey looked dubious. Brendon tried to sit up and thought better of it. He was sprawled on a couch on a bus, and fuck, he was still wearing his stage costume. It was probably wrinkled. Ryan was going to have a hissy fit of epic proportions. “You don’t know a lot to tell. Don’t worry about it.” He patted Brendon’s leg.

“They kept asking. They… I think I got injected with something before I got shot. I got _shot_. Did I mention that?”

“You got rayed,” Mikey corrected.

Right, Mikey had a whole secret life as a technological genius. “Should I be mad at you for inventing the ray guns?” Brendon asked, trying to scowl and failing, because of his serious throbbing headache.

Mikey shrugged. “You can, but it’s stupid,” he said. “I won’t even invent them for like, five more years. I don’t know how anyone else gets them.”

Something was really weird about that first sentence, and it took Brendon a minute to work out what. “Wait,” he said. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Gerard shifted nervously. “Frank’s getting you some water,” he said. “You’ll feel better in a little while. Water totally helps. I got shot with one this one time. Water made me feel a lot better.”

Brendon pushed himself up on his elbows. “No, hang on,” he said. “Did Mikey just imply that I got shot with a ray gun from the _future_? Because... Because, okay, _fine_ , Bob’s a ninja and Mikey’s a genius and Ray knows everything that ever happened, and you, Gerard Way, are a spy master. I am drawing the _line_ at ray guns from the future, okay? There is a _line_ and I am _drawing it there._ ”

“He’s getting kind of hysterical, huh?” said Frank cheerfully, walking in. He offered Brendon a glass. Brendon stared at it suspiciously. It was probably drugged, or poisoned, or from the fucking _future_ or something. “Man, you’re lucky Mikey was hooked in to your Sidekick. It only took us like, an hour to find you. Bad shit could have gone down otherwise. Gerard’s _awesome_ at last minute rescues.” He made googly eyes at Gerard, who blushed a little and chewed his lip.

Brendon moaned dramatically and took the water. He was too upset to be comforted that there had been some kind of big gay rescue mission. “You’re telling me that someone might have killed me,” he said. “I got kidnapped and I almost died because of all this stuff you haven’t even told me about?”

“I tried to warn you. And we can’t tell you,” said Gerard, shifting again. “It’s complicated.”

“Right,” Brendon complained. “Because it’s less complicated to tell me about ray guns from the _future_ than why someone might try to kill me or what you’re up to.”

Frank looked thoughtful. “You should have seen Bob’s face when Mikey discovered that he’d invented time travel.”

“No,” said Brendon firmly. “That never happened. I refuse.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what Bob said,” Frank agreed.

Gerard shrugged apologetically. “The thing is,” he said. “See… We can’t tell you everything.” He looked at Frank, who nodded.

“Some of it’s classified,” said Frank. “Some of it’s stuff we can’t tell anyone. Man, you should have seen _Brian’s_ face when we told him we needed to tear out half the bus and use it to build Ray and Mikey a lab.”

Brendon was groggy, but he wasn’t _that_ groggy. “Please tell me Mikey hasn’t been busy on your tour bus inventing _time travel_. That’s… Is _that_ how you’ve been able to get to me wherever I was? It _is_. Oh my god!” He pushed aside the idea of whether MCR’s manager knew they were crazy time-traveling spies, because that was not the most urgent question at the moment.

“No way,” said Gerard. Brendon took a long, relieved breath. He could deal with a lot of stuff, but not that. Not teleportation and time travel and Mikey fucking Way inventing all that shit. “He won’t invent it for like, ten more years,” Gerard continued helpfully.

“No,” said Brendon. He put his hands over his face. “No, no, no.”

Gerard shrugged. “We’re pretty excited for when he does,” he said. “I keep trying to get him to rush, but he says it’ll happen when it happens. Happened. Is going to have happened. Fuck, I hate talking about time travel.” He lit a cigarette.

Kidnapped, almost murdered, sort of lied to, and now _this_. Brendon was a little hysterical. “So he’s working on it _right now_?” Brendon demanded.

“No,” said Mikey. “That’s the best part. Me-from-the-future says I totally do it by accident. Apparently I’ll be trying to fix our toaster, and then… Bam.”

There were things that were weird, like My Chemical Romance as spies. Then there were things that violated the entire natural order of the universe, like Mikey Way inventing time travel. Brendon couldn’t breathe. “So... So... So you could just _not_ fix your toaster?”

“We have to fix the toaster,” Gerard admonished. “It’s going to break.”

“You’re _rock stars_. You can _buy a new toaster_!” Brendon’s voice was two octaves higher than usual.

Frank put a comforting hand on Brendon’s shoulder and petted him for a minute until he could breathe again. “Listen, kid,” he said. “You’re feeling overwhelmed and bad right now because you went through something scary. But it’s over and it’s fine, and we’ll have Worm tell Zack to keep a better eye on you when you’re not with us. Calm the fuck down.”

“Kind of scary?” Brendon demanded. “I almost got _killed_ , okay? You all may be playing at being spies and ninjas, but I’m not. I’m twenty. I don’t want to end up dead before I’m old enough to rent a car!” It hit him, suddenly, that all their dire warnings had been true, and he, Brendon, was an _idiot_.

“So, what?” Gerard asked. “You’re quitting?”

The disbelief in Gerard’s voice and the sneer on Mikey’s face pushed him into certainty. “Yeah,” he said. “I… I think I am,” he said. He sat up properly, even though it made the bus go swimmy for a second. “It’s all… I wanted to help, but this is too much. I suck at it anyway. You’re better off without me.”

Gerard, Mikey, and Frank had a long, complicated conversation without words, just eyebrows and shrugs and flailing hand gestures on Gerard’s part. “You might not be able to,” said Gerard finally.

“I quit,” Brendon folded his arms. “I want out. Just… Don’t tell me anything else – not that you did anyway – and leave me alone.”

“They came after you once,” said Mikey.

“Who?” Brendon demanded. “ _Who_ came after me? Oh, and speaking of which, why the fuck was there a picture of Brent in the cabinets you guys broke in to? Is that what they meant by ‘Why are you so important?’”

Another long, silent exchange followed that. “We can’t talk about it,” said Frank finally. He sounded grumpy. “Just… Don’t worry about it.”

“Sure,” Brendon agreed. “I’ll just almost get killed and not ask why.”

“You wanted in,” Mikey pointed out.

“And now I want _out_.”

Gerard looked at Frank and sighed. “If we could --” he said.

“You can invent time travel while you’re fixing the toaster,” Brendon said. “You can’t figure out a way to let me quit?” He refused to say anything else until the bus dropped him off outside the hotel where Panic! was staying. He didn’t ask how they knew, even when Gerard looked sort of apologetic and said, “Ryan and Spencer and everyone have been worried about you.”

“No shit,” said Brendon instead. “I’ve been missing for hours, right?”

“Almost a full day, actually,” Gerard said. “And before you ask, no, you can’t tell them where you were.”

“Yeah,” said Brendon. “Duh.” He climbed out of the bus. The sun was setting behind the hotel. He caught a glimpse of himself in the bus’s mirrored windows; the stage makeup was still smeared all over his face, so he looked like a hobo clown, although not the kind of hobo clown Ryan enjoyed looking like.

Gerard stood in the door of the bus and sighed. “Think it over, okay? You’re upset. It’s cool.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Brendon snapped. He stormed in to the hotel.

It was a nice place and everyone in the lobby stopped to turn and stare. Zack was standing there talking on his cell phone. He took one look at Brendon and his whole face got angrier than anything Brendon ever wanted directed his way by someone seven times his size.

“Fuck!” said Zack. “What the fuck, Brendon? You better tell me you were kidnapped.”

Brendon’s life sucked so, so hard. “Sorry,” he said lamely instead, and let Zack drag him upstairs.

\\\\\\\

Spencer had never seen Ryan this upset. He wanted to say mad, because it would have made sense for Ryan to be mad, but that didn’t capture the essence of Ryan Ross right now. He’d been mad after the show, when Brendon had vanished. He’d been furious when they woke up and Brendon still wasn’t back. He’d moved on to nuclear meltdown sometime in the early afternoon when Brendon continued not to answer his phone.

All Spencer could do was point Jon at Ryan and say, “Help.” Jon was good at getting Ryan to calm down, but even Jon Walker’s magic couldn’t quite deal with this.

They’d dealt with disappearing band members once, and it had taken a serious toll on Ryan. Spencer wasn’t going to watch that happen again. If he had to, he’d find a closet and lock Brendon in until show time. No one was allowed to make Ryan’s face do _that_ , that _thing_ it had been doing since last night when Brendon hadn’t answered his phone.

Ryan wasn’t normally much of a snuggler; he liked a lot of personal space, and touching had to be cleared with him first on pain of really, really bitchy looks. Brendon was a glaring exception to this rule, mostly because he couldn’t be persuaded to remember it But Spencer was sitting on the bed, flipping channels idly, and Ryan came over and deliberately sat down next to him, leaning gingerly against his shoulder.

Spencer wanted to sigh. “He’s fine,” he said instead. “He’s just a jackass.”

“What if he’s not?”

“We _know_ he’s a jackass,” Spencer said, flipping to the cooking channel.

Ryan didn’t even respond to the joke, just pressed a little closer to Spencer. That was bad. It made Spencer want to punch things. Brendon had better be _dying_ somewhere. Only he’d also better _not_ actually be dying somewhere.

“Are we cuddling now?” asked Jon, looking at them. “Because if we’re cuddling, I want in.”

Ryan just bit his lip. Jon sighed and sat down at the foot of the bed and patted his leg.

The door banged open and Zack walked in, holding Brendon by the arm like a lost toddler. He looked like total shit, with makeup all over his face and a black eye underneath. He was still wearing his clothes from the night before, for god’s sake.

Ryan jumped off the bed like he’d been burned. “Brendon,” he said, and then stopped. They stared at each other for a second.

Spencer was honestly a referee at the Emotional Special Olympics. “Where the fuck were you?” he said, because Ryan wasn’t going to.

Brendon had looked sort of sullen, but as soon as Spencer said anything he went in to shut-down mode. It was weird to see Brendon trying really hard not to respond. He crossed his arms – Zack still hadn’t let go – and stared at the floor. “Nowhere,” he said.

“Are you kidding?” Jon asked. “Are you fucking _kidding_? We were worried!”

“Whatever,” said Brendon, in his sulkiest tone. “I’m going to go take a shower. Zack!” He tried to pull his arm free, and Zack just stared at him, disbelieving.

Spencer was so mad he couldn’t make words. He would defend Brendon to the death under normal circumstances, but if Brendon was going to screw around like this, death was going to happen really, really soon. “You—” he started.

“We’re going to have a talk,” said Zack ominously. “Just me and Brendon. I’m going to get one of those kid leashes. Then we’ll see who’s doing nothing. Come on.” He walked in to the bathroom and Brendon followed like a toy boat being pulled by a cruise ship.

Jon looked at Spencer. Spencer looked at Ryan. Ryan was frozen, mouth still sort of open. “He… Where was he?” said Ryan after a second. “Was he out with other people? Was he… Why didn’t he call?”

“We’ll figure it out,” Jon promised, pulling Ryan in to a one-armed hug. Ryan swallowed a sad noise. Jon waggled his eyebrows concernedly at Spencer, who shrugged back helplessly. This was clearly way beyond their ability to fix.

////

  
Things were tense. Spencer’s shoulders knotted up so badly he could barely move his arms, and that made drumming torture. He considered asking Jon for a massage, but it wasn’t safe to leave Ryan on his own.

Ryan was upset like he hadn’t been since his high school girlfriend had cheated on him. Only instead of writing songs about it, he sat around like a lump staring in to space. The rainbow-colored neckerchiefs were gone, replaced by endless scarves and the orphan-newsboy hat Spencer was sure he’d thrown away. On _Planet Panic! at the Disco_ that meant the wild Ryan Ross had retreated into hibernation and sadness and wasn’t coming out again until spring, or maybe next time they got a record deal.

Spencer tried pretending things were fine, but Ryan, when he wasn’t on stage, just sat there looking hurt. He didn’t respond to Jon – how could anyone not respond to _Jon Walker_ , he was basically a walking teddy bear with a beer – and he didn’t respond to Spencer and he was pretending that there was no such person as Brendon. After a couple of days Spencer gave up and just sat with him.

Brendon didn’t even have the manners to grovel and apologize. He was withdrawn and sulky, too. When Spencer went off to sit on the couch and stare endlessly into space with Ryan, he tried to get Jon to go talk to Brendon, but Brendon wasn’t talking, not even to Jon, and Jon was his _favorite_. The whole situation was weird.

It took Spencer a couple of days to figure Brendon’s attitude out. When he did, he couldn’t believe it. Brendon was in a full-on “My life sucks so hard” pout. Like the whole thing had somehow been bad for _him_ , and he hadn’t just been out being a jackass somewhere, and then lied about it. His Sidekick beeped now and then, but Brendon just looked at it and then turned it off, or hid it under the bed, or pretended to forget it somewhere. It was utterly unlike him.

Ryan wouldn’t look at Brendon, and Brendon didn’t seem to care. They were both the center of their own little universes. Spencer made a list of things to yell at them about and then threw it away because they both looked so miserable.

Thank god they were all professionals; the shows went fine. Interviews were a little bit harder to fake, since Brendon mostly stared at his sneakers. Spencer just told everyone he was feeling sick and answered all the questions.

Spencer let it go for a week. And then he let it go for another week, because Ryan was really, sincerely upset. Spencer told Jon that after the show that night he was planning to take Brendon aside and either figure out what was happening or kill him. Jon agreed that that seemed fair.

First, though, they had a show to do. It was the last for a while, and it was in a ridiculously large arena. Spencer was psyched, but he was also exhausted. He wanted them to rent a cabin in the woods somewhere and go and just lie around doing nothing for a few months where no one could find them. Assuming, of course, that Ryan and Brendon worked through their stupidity first.

They were looking at the stage during sound check when Brendon suddenly, for the first time in two weeks, perked up. His eyes got cartoonishly big and he stood there staring for a minute. “What?” Spencer asked. He was hopeful that he’d get some kind of totally idiotic answer and maybe Brendon would start giggling and fall over. He couldn’t believe he missed that kind of shit, but he totally did.

“That’s,” said Brendon vaguely. “Um. I have to go get my Sidekick. I’ll see you guys in a few minutes.” He turned and ran off stage.

“Bullshit,” said Zack, and went after him.

“What?” Jon asked, restringing his bass.

Spencer squinted at what Brendon had been looking at. It just looked like amps and wires and plugs and a couple of boxes to him. “No idea,” he said.

Ryan hadn’t even looked up. Spencer stifled a sigh with a lot of effort. “Everything’s gonna be fine,” he said.

“Yeah,” Jon agreed. He sounded worried. Jon _never_ sounded worried.

Ryan nodded and played something maudlin.

\\\\\\\

Brendon’s hands were shaking and he could only get his Sidekick to type out every other letter he wanted. _trube hre 4 srsss_ was what it said when he accidentally hit send. He took a deep breath and typed again. _truble here 4 serius_ , he sent, and then added _HELP!!!!!_

He waited a few seconds but Frank and Gerard didn’t call back. It felt like an eternity. Brendon tried not to hyperventilate.

Zack was standing in the doorway of the bus, glaring at him. “You okay?” he said, sounding more annoyed than concerned.

“Uh,” said Brendon.

“Feeling sick?” Zack frowned. “Because if this is some shitty attempt to get out of performing Spencer and I are going to take turns killing you. We’re still pissed about—”

“I know,” Brendon snapped, willing his phone to ring.

“You know shit,” said Zack. “What’s the big?”

Brendon couldn’t exactly turn to Zack and say, “Those stage lights and all the extra wiring? Those are exactly like the bombs Frank Iero showed me how to make.” He just pressed his lips together and bounced a little bit and stuffed the phone in his pocket. “Nothing,” he said.

“Then get your ass back to soundcheck,” Zack ordered.

Brendon nodded. If he was right, this was an attempt to kill the entire band, and maybe an arena full of fans. Brendon would stop it however he had to. He just… He had to talk to MCR first.

He stepped back on stage and Spencer and Ryan stared at him. It was the first time in a couple of weeks Ryan had looked at him – not that Brendon had noticed – and Brendon tried not to seem worried that they were all in danger of imminent death. His voice cracked and broke a lot more than usual, and he lost the words to a couple songs, but he laughed and rolled his eyes and made a face, so they were all willing to pretend it was normal.

A they finished up Zack walked over and said, “This is one of the suits here to hear you tonight. Mr. Donovan, say hello to the boys.”

“Hi boys,” said the man in a suit, walking over.

Brendon’s heart stopped beating.

It was the man who’d seen him in the hallway the night of the break-and-enter.

It was the voice that had asked him what he knew about the Way brothers.

They were all in _so fucking much trouble_.

Jon and Spencer were saying hi and being polite, while Ryan hung back a little bit. Jon shook the guy’s hand. Brendon concentrated on not running over and slapping Jon’s hand away. Screaming, “That guy shot me!” wasn’t going to do him any good. Plus, he hadn’t really been shot, he’d been rayed.

“And this is Brendon,” said Spencer, beckoning.

Brendon couldn’t move. He looked at Donovan and Donovan looked at him. Brendon’s mouth wasn’t working. Spencer frowned and said, “What? Brendon, what?” but Brendon just shook his head and fumbled for his phone. That man was going to kill Spencer and Jon and Ryan.

 _CALL ME. NOW. NOW. NOW. NOW. NOW._ He snapped the phone shut and shuddered. Spencer was moving from confused in to mad.

Brendon’s phone rang. He almost burst in to tears. “Hey,” he said shakily, pretending he couldn’t see Spencer miming death threats at him. “What’s up?”

“What the fuck?” demanded Frank Iero’s voice. “This had better be fucking important.”

“Um,” said Brendon, dropping his voice and turning away as much as he could. “He’s here. The guy. The one who rayed me.” Did that sound suspicious? He threw a glance over his shoulder, but no one was looking.

Frank swore, creatively and loudly. “At the venue?”

“Yeah. When I looked at the stage setup, it looked a lot like stuff _you_ showed me. You need to _do_ something.”

He heard Frank talking to someone and then Gerard saying, “—right fucking now? Shit, Frankie, your pants—”

Behind him Donovan was still talking to Jon. He was getting his creepy killer evil cooties all over Jon Walker, one of Brendon’s three favorite people in the whole world. Brendon wanted to grab Jon and drag him away to safety.

“Just sit tight,” said Frank. “We can be there pronto. Hold tight and don’t let the band out of your sight until we get there. Okay? Bob and Ray will follow. Mikey’s gonna run ops.”

“Okay,” Brendon said. Ryan was looking at him, so he dropped his voice again. “Hurry, dude.”

“On our way,” said Frank, and hung up.

Donovan looked right at Brendon and smiled. “Two hours until show time,” he said.

Two hours. Brendon nodded. Spencer smiled and made a joke and Jon laughed. Ryan looked morosely at his sneakers.

Two hours. Shit. What could Brendon do in two hours besides worry?

Not a whole lot, he realized, and swallowed hard.

\\\\\\\

Donovan smiled and walked them to the dressing room and shook everyone’s hands again. Brendon didn’t have an excuse not to, and Spencer was looking upset, so Brendon bit his lip and let Donovan shake his hand.

“You’re lucky to be here,” Donovan said with a bright, cheery smile.

Brendon was not fooled for an instant. “Yeah,” he said. “Lucky me.” He tried to narrow his eyes just a little, just enough to let Donovan know that he was on to him, and he’d called MCR, and whatever dastardly plotting was going on would be stopped.

“Why don’t you kids go in to the dressing room? I’ll shoo everyone else out, so you can have some time to relax before the show. Zack, can I show you some more of the setup around here?”

Zack pointed at Brendon. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said.

Brendon bit his tongue so he didn’t yell _Don’t leave us_. It was weird not having other people rushing in and out of the room. Gerard and Frank should have been getting there at any second. They would clean everything up, and then it wouldn’t matter anymore. Donovan shooed them all in to the room and shut the door, taking Zack with him.

“What?” Spencer demanded. “You’re acting crazy, Bren. What’s going on?”

“You know what would help,” offered Jon, with a complicated little hand gesture.

Spencer said sternly, “Jon, honestly, he can’t smoke up right before a show. It’ll fuck with his voice.”

“Where are my fingerless gloves?” Ryan asked. “I don’t see them here.”

A perfect excuse to rush in to the hallway and text Frank and Gerard, Brendon decided. “I’ll go look,” he said, bouncing to his feet.

The catch turned out to be that the door was locked. Brendon yanked and yanked, and then just stared at it for a second. “But he… He didn’t say, ‘ _No_ , Mr. Urie, I expect you to _die_ ,’ or _anything_ ,” he almost-wailed, banging on the door.

“What the fuck, dude?” Jon asked. “The door’s locked? Call Zack.”

Brendon was grimly certain that Zack’s phone would be off. Or missing. He dropped to the floor. “That won’t help.”

“Okay, even on the Brendon Urie scale of weirdness, you’re off the charts,” said Spencer. “What’s up, dude?”

Brendon was dying to tell them. He wanted commiseration and sympathy and someone to freak out with him. But he also didn’t want to make things worse. Maybe Donovan only wanted to kill _him_ , and he’d leave everyone else alone. Maybe My Chemical Romance was going to swoop in at any second and fix everything.

“I don’t like that guy,” said Brendon. “He’s creepy.”

Spencer narrowed his eyes. “Did he say something creepy to you? Do I have to kill him?”

Spencer was so reliably awesome that Brendon could have kissed him. “It’s… Mostly just the vibe I get from him,” said Brendon. Later, he decided, he would tell everyone and let Spencer go after Donovan.

“Dude, it’s pre-show jitters,” said Jon. “Chill.”

“It’s… Yeah,” Brendon agreed. He was extremely nervous to go out on a stage that was loaded with all kinds of explosives being run by a guy who’d tried to kill him. His phone beeped. “Oh, thank god.”

“Big phone call?” Ryan asked. He sounded weirdly… jealous?

“Sort of,” Brendon said. _Here_ , said Frank’s text. _Sit tite_. “Oh, good.”

“What?” Spencer asked, grabbing for the phone.

That was the last fucking thing Brendon needed at this second. “Nothing,” he said quickly. “Just… Good news.”

Frank and Gerard were totally going to handle everything, and Brendon could stop worrying. He closed his eyes for a second. Things were going to be fine. No one was going to kill him and his band. Everything was going to be fine.

His overwhelming relief was interrupted when his phone beeped again. That seemed too soon to be good news. Brendon frowned.

_Thank you for bringing them here, Mr. Urie. I appreciate it. –D_

Brendon’s jaw must have actually, literally dropped, because Spencer said, “Jesus, _now_ what?”

“I have to—I need to make a phone call,” said Brendon, looking around. They were locked in a room, where the fuck was he supposed to call from that wouldn’t be overheard? “Give me… Just a second.”

He shut himself in the bathroom, locked the door, and tried Frank’s number. Then Gerard’s. Then Frank’s again. There was no fucking answer. Brendon took a couple of deep breaths so he wouldn’t pass out, and dialed Ray. Ray was reliable. Ray was smart. Ray knew stuff about things, and Ray would know what to do.

He picked up almost immediately. “We’re in a lot of fucking trouble,” Brendon whispered. He could hear the band arguing right outside the bathroom door.

“Guys, chill,” Jon was saying. “I’m sure it’s something totally explainable.”

“Family stuff, maybe?” Ryan muttered.

“He’s going to get punched in the mouth, I don’t even _care_ ,” Spencer said.

Ray asked calmly, “What happened?”

“Frank texted that he was here. And then Donovan – that’s the guy, okay, the one who totally tried to kidnap and murder me? – he texted me to thank me. Oh my god, if he hacked my phone, he’s listening to us right now, isn’t he? Fuck!”

Ray said, “He can hear you, but not me. Mikey invented a thing—”

“Tell me what to do,” Brendon pleaded. “He’s going to blow up the venue. Wait, I _hope_ he’s listening. You fucker! No one messes with my band, okay, I will—”

“Hey, shhhh,” said Ray. “I’m going to tag in on Frank’s phone and see where he is. And then you’re going to go help Gerard and Frank.”

“The hell I am,” said Brendon. “Can’t you—”

“Listening, remember?” said Ray.

Spencer banged on the door a couple of times. “We’re waiting!” he yelled, in his fake-patient voice.

“I quit!” Brendon protested.

“Well, you un-quit when you called us for help,” Ray said. “If Frank and Gerard are in trouble, that’s your fault, and if you don’t help them _your_ band is in trouble. Suck it up. Okay?”

“Okay,” Brendon said meekly, because he couldn’t argue with that.

There was a weird beeping noise. “Found them,” said Ray, “or at least I found their phones. You said the door is locked, right? Doesn’t matter; I pulled up the schematic and it looks like the air ducts are going to be the way to get there.”

“You remember the part where I’m bad at this, right?” Brendon asked. “I’m just checking.”

“I remember the part where shut up,” said Ray. “Okay, if you stand on the back of the toilet you should be able to get in to the ventilation system. You’re going to go north as far as you can and then you’re going to head to the east part of the building. Okay?”

“How the fuck do I—” Brendon started, and then remembered people were listening. “Um. No. Say it again?”

Ray sighed a little. “Stand on the toilet. Pull down the grating. Go straight ahead as far as you can, and when you can’t go further go right. Okay? You’ll be over the room where I think they are. And turn the phone to silent, because if it rings and you get caught or killed this shit doesn’t do anyone any good.”

Ray was so, so smart. “Okay,” said Brendon. “And then what?”

There was a long silence. “Then…” said Ray. “Then you’re going to have to improvise. Me and Bob will be there as soon as we can, so… Good luck.”

“But… No!” was all Brendon could come up with.

“Go,” said Ray. “Quickly.” He hung up.

Spencer banged on the door. “Dude,” he yelled. “Are you like, drowning yourself or something? Who are you _talking_ to?”

“No one,” Brendon yelled back. “I just… Uh. I need some time, okay? Give me a few minutes.” By the end of which Brendon would either be dead along with Frank and Gerard or he’d have saved his band from certain doom. One or the other.

“We’re gonna play Guitar Hero,” Jon yelled. “C’mon, Bden. Come play!”

They thought he was so fucking easy, didn’t they? Brendon sighed. He usually was. “In a few,” he said. He stuck his Sidekick in his pocket and looked speculatively at the vent over the toilet. He could fit up there. Probably.

“…leave him alone, then,” said Spencer to someone else. Then he called, “Fine! You have half an hour. Then we’re knocking the door down.”

Well, half an hour ought to do it, either way. “Great,” said Brendon, climbing up on the back of the toilet. “Thanks!” He pushed on the vent, which, thank fuck, wasn’t screwed in or anything. It took a little shoulder work, but he got it up.

It would have been nice if he’d had a gun, even if he sucked at shooting them. It would have been nice to tell Spencer and Jon and Ryan, so they could back him up. It would have been nice if Ray and Bob had suddenly shown up to be competent and ass-kicking.

Brendon sighed and wiggled up in to the ceiling.

\\\\\

**_NOW_ **

“Tell us what we want to know,” said the man. He wasn’t Donovan, he was just some guy in a suit, but he had a gun, and it was pointed at Gerard, and Frank didn’t look likely to talk.

Brendon swore under his breath. Frank and Gerard were all tied up. That _sucked_. Brendon’s hands were sweaty and shaking and he was pretty sure his contribution to the world of super spying was going to be when he threw up all over the bad guys right before he got shot.

It was one of those things, though. You just closed your eyes and _did it_ , and it either worked or it didn’t, and that was it. Worrying and planning were just going to get in the way and _oh god, oh god, oh god_ , Brendon moved the grate.

“I’m not telling you shit,” said Frank.

“Then I’ll kill him,” said the suit. “Do you think Donovan came all the way back here for nothing? Tonight is going to go off without a hitch—”

“You mean when you blow up a bunch of kids?” Gerard asked, spitting blood. “You sons of bitches.”

The man shrugged. “All I was told was that the band had to be stopped. Permanently. Do you have something else to share?”

Brendon wiggled around so he wouldn’t have to go head-first in to the room. He figured he had a better shot if he was on his feet, although as many times as Bob had shown him how to drop-and-roll he still hadn’t quite gotten it. Or that grab-the-gun thing, either, which was seeming like a pretty vital move to have mastered.

“Fuck, no,” said Gerard, and looked at Frank. “I love you, dude.”

“I love _you_ , dude,” said Frank back.

Brendon didn’t pray anymore, so he just closed his eyes and jumped.

He didn’t land on the suit, which might have been perfect. Instead he was in front of the guy which… Wasn’t. “What the fuck?” said the suit.

“Oh, shit,” said Frank.

There was a gun aimed at him, but this time it wasn’t Ray or Bob trying to show him how to do stuff in a friendly practice session. Muscle memory, Brendon told himself firmly, and reached for it.

Just like he expected, he knocked the gun out of both of their hands and it clattered across the floor. “Good enough,” Brendon said, and punched the suit in the face.

It hurt like _fuck_ , all the way up his arm to the shoulder, but he’d aimed through the nose like Bob said and put his weight behind it. Brendon might have been six inches shorter than the guy, but the suit wasn’t expecting it. He folded like a towel. Bob Bryar didn’t fuck around with ninja training.

“Gun gun gun _gun_!” yelled Frank.

Brendon was so there already. He scrambled on his knees for the gun and by the time the guy straightened up Brendon had it aimed right at his chest. His hands were only shaking a little bit, which was pretty fucking amazing. “I will shoot you _dead_ , motherfucker,” said Brendon. His voice was shaking a lot, unfortunately.

“You’re in the band,” said the man incredulously. “Give me that.”

Brendon’s brain and his mouth were still dithering over what to do, but his hands apparently had listened to Bob carefully. His fingers tightened totally without his supervision, and the gun fired. The recoil made his arms jerk back and his hands burn, but the suit… The suit dropped to the floor.

“Oh, shit,” Brendon whispered.

His whole brain shut down in a fuzzy cloud of white noise and overwhelming panic and the need to throw up _right fucking now_. The bang had been _so much louder_ than when he’d practiced with Ray, it was still echoing around his brain. His mouth tasted like copper. His hands were shaking so hard he could barely hold on to the gun and he leaned over and lost his lunch.

When he could hear again, Frank was yelling, “Fucking _untie_ us, dumbass, someone’s going to have heard that.”

Brendon nodded because he couldn’t talk. He clicked on the safety and started pulling the ropes around Frank apart. It took forever, because his fingers were still tingling with adrenaline. The second Frank could wiggle free he did, taking the gun from Brendon, who didn’t object.

“You did good,” said Gerard, spitting a little more blood. Frank pulled a knife out of his sneaker and cut Gerard free, too. “That was awesome, Brendon. You didn’t hesitate, you didn’t freak out, you didn’t drop the gun. You did a really good job.”

“I…” said Brendon, and couldn’t say anything else because there was a guy lying on the floor and there was blood all around him. “I’m gonna throw up again, I think.”

“The time for freaking out,” said Frank, “is after we’re done. That guy was gonna kill us, and then he was going to kill Spencer and Jon and Ryan. Focus on that. He was going to kill _Ryan_. You are a big goddamn hero. Okay?”

“No one gets to kill Ryan,” Brendon agreed numbly. He wished, for the millionth time, that Spencer were around. Spencer would have known how to handle this.

“Give the kid a minute,” said Gerard.

“I would, but we can’t,” said Frank, with one of those significant looks he was always giving Gerard. “The band’s the target. If we’re here and they’re found out, why wait until tonight to blow them up?”

Gerard swore loudly. “Where’s the rest of your band?” he demanded.

Oh god, it wasn’t over? Why wasn’t it over? “Locked in the dressing room,” said Brendon. “Why? What’s… Ray and Bob are going to be here soon. Can’t we just wait?”

Gerard leaned over the guy on the floor. “He’s not dead,” he said. “You hit his shoulder. Nice shot. And no. If Donovan panics he’ll default to killing your band.”

“I can’t shoot anyone else,” said Brendon flatly. “I… I can’t. Someone else has to… I can’t.”

Frank patted him on the shoulder. “The sooner we get there, the less we need to kill people,” he said. “I’ll text Ray and Mikey.”

Brendon nodded shakily. As long as there was no more shooting, he was probably okay. Maybe. He could fake it, at least.

“I threw up, too,” said Gerard, with a friendly smile. The effect was kind of ruined by all the blood on his face. “The first time, I mean. I threw up all over the place.”

Frank flipped his phone shut. “Their ETA is five minutes, so let’s get this done up, guys. Here.” He tossed Brendon the gun.

Brendon caught it gingerly and grimaced. “I don’t want—” he started.

Frank grinned wolfishly. “We have to go save your band, genius. Don’t you want to look heroic and cool?”

Brendon did, more than almost anything else in the world – short of finding a corner to curl up in for a few hours– but not if it meant using it again. “Don’t you need guns?” he asked.

“Watch,” said Frank, and opened the door.

There were a couple of guards outside, and they weren’t expecting Frank. There was a blur of motion – Frank was a ninja just like Bob – and then they were both on the floor, bleeding and unconscious. Frank took their guns. “It was a fucking fluke that they caught us on the way in,” he said.

“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition,” crowed Gerard.

Frank put his hands on his hips. “I keep telling you,” he said. “I don’t think Monty Python is appropriate for this kind of situation.”

“That is totally binary thinking,” Gerard replied. “I mean, if it’s our situation, don’t we get to decide what’s appropriate?”

Brendon followed them down the hallway. Frank whispered, “Quoting Monty Python ruins the atmosphere a little.”

“Oh, fine,” Gerard whispered back, “judge me. What should I be quoting? Reservoir Dogs? Should I shoot someone and then say ‘Yippe-ki-yay, motherfucker’?”

Frank looked like he was considering it. Brendon pointed. “Our dressing room was that way,” he said. It was a lot easier to tell when he wasn’t crawling through the ceiling. His knees had mostly stopped shaking too, so that was nice.

They managed to avoid people, ducking around corners and waiting in doorways for them to pass, while arguing in hushed voices over quoting movies. Brendon wondered if they ever stopped in the middle of one of these missions to just make out.

“There’s someone outside the door,” Frank reported, sticking his head around the corner. “I’ll handle him, you two head in. Expect Donovan to be in there.”

“You know Donovan?” Brendon whispered to Gerard.

“Later,” Frank hissed, and attacked.

Frank Iero attacking was really fucking impressive to watch. Gerard kicked in the door – who knew Gerard could even _do_ that? – and pulled Brendon with him.

Brendon’s hands were still sweaty and he was worried he was going to drop the gun and then no one would be impressed after at all. Donovan was inside, pointing a gun at Ryan, which made Brendon stop breathing. Spencer and Ryan and Jon were all standing against the wall, looking bewildered, while Donovan shouted, “Where did the other one go?”

“Right here, asshole,” Brendon yelled. He was surprised that his voice was so loud, and thrilled that he sounded a little bit Dirty Harry.

“What the _shit_?” Spencer demanded.

Donovan didn’t turn or move his arm. “Ah,” he said. “Unfortunate. Put your gun down, Brendon, or I’ll shoot your friends.”

“No fucking way,” said Gerard. “If you shoot them we’ll shoot you.”

“But maybe I only have to kill one of them,” said Donovan evenly. “So it doesn’t matter if you kill me or not.”

“What the _fuck is going on_?” Spencer demanded. “Why—” Donovan moved the gun toward him, and Spencer shut up.

Brendon said, “No one is _shooting_ anyone from my band. No one!” He didn’t have a plan, and he didn’t know if Gerard and Frank had one, either. He just wanted Donovan to turn the gun away from the rest of Panic!.

“Maybe I’ll take a hostage,” said Donovan, grabbing Ryan. Spencer automatically grabbed Ryan’s other arm. Donovan had his gun pointed at Ryan’s head, but he used his elbow to clock Spencer right in the face. Spencer doubled over, and Donovan yanked Ryan away.

Brendon was so mad he was seeing red. “I already shot one guy,” he said, clenching his teeth. “Let him go.”

“You what?” Jon asked, putting an arm protectively around Spencer. “This is _weird_.”

Ryan hadn’t said anything, he was just looking at Brendon with his big, stupid eyes and letting Donovan pull him toward the door. Brendon was going to _cry_ , nothing was allowed to happen to Ryan.

“No fucking way,” said Frank, popping up behind Donovan. He knocked Donovan’s gun arm away from Ryan, and Brendon launched himself at them both. He fell on Donovan more than he attacked him, but he got an arm around the guy’s neck and dragged him off balance long enough for Gerard to get Ryan away and Frank to reach for his gun.

But Donovan wasn’t as easy to take down as his henchmen had been – Brendon got an elbow in the face that fucking _hurt_ – and Frank got bitten, it looked like, and then Donovan was on his feet and running for the door. “Fuck,” said Frank. “I’m going after him.”

Brendon stood up painfully. “What about the bombs?” he said.

Everyone turned to look at him.

“You know,” he said impatiently to Gerard, “the reason I called you here? The entire stage is wired to blow the fuck up, remember? If he goes there –”

“It’ll take the whole building down,” Gerard agreed. “Okay, new plan. Brendon, get your band the hell out of here, and Frank and I will handle the bombs.”

“No. Fucking. Way,” said Spencer. He had a bloody nose that looked nasty, and he was still leaning on Jon a little bit. He mostly looked incredibly mad. “No one is going _anywhere_ , okay, until someone tells me _what the fuck is going on._ ”

“Can we?” said Brendon. “ _Please_?” He looked earnestly at Gerard.

Gerard looked at Frank. Frank shrugged. “Fine,” said Gerard. “The short version. Sometimes when we’re not on tour, we help save the world. Brendon’s been helping out.”

The entire band turned to stare at Brendon, who shrugged uncomfortably. “I’m not actually very helpful,” he said. “Plus, I quit.”

“And now,” said Ray’s voice behind him, “You’re un-quit. Right?”

The relief Brendon felt was physical. “I shot a guy,” said Brendon to Bob.

Bob nodded thoughtfully. “Sometimes shit happens,” he said. “I bet you were awesome.” Brendon shook his head. He didn’t feel awesome.

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Spencer, holding up his hands. “This is… Why _Brendon_? I would be _so much better_ at this than Brendon, you don’t even know—”

“That’s what I said,” Brendon agreed.

“Donovan’s getting away,” said Gerard firmly. “Ray, Bob, you want to handle that? Frank and I can go find the bombs. Brendon, get the kids out of here—”

“I’m coming with,” Spencer said immediately. He glared accusingly at Brendon.

Brendon looked apologetic. “I wasn’t allowed to say anything.”

“We’ll take Spencer with us,” said Ray unexpectedly.

“Then I’m going with Spencer,” Jon volunteered.

“Ryan and I will go with Gerard and Frank,” said Brendon. He realized suddenly that Ryan hadn’t said a word since he’d walked in. “Ryan? Are you okay?”

Ryan looked uncertainly at him. “When I… When we were mad at you for being missing… Were you okay?” he asked quietly. “Or were you like… You had a black eye.”

“Donovan kidnapped him,” said Frank. Spencer’s face got even madder somehow. “Can we go, please?”

The urge to reach out and take Ryan’s hand or pet him or something and make him stop _staring_ like that, all upset, was intense. Brendon bit his lip. “I’m okay,” he said. “I’m _so_ glad you guys know about this. Keeping it to myself was awful.”

“Let’s go,” Gerard repeated, hustling them out the door. “Up to the stage!”

“And for fuck’s sake,” Frank added, “put the gun away. We’re not trying to get stopped by security between here and there.”

Brendon nodded and shoved it in his pocket. He wanted to put it in the waistband of his jeans, but they were really tight, number one, and number two the potential for getting hurt was scary. Ryan looked shocky and upset, so Brendon let himself – just this once, it wasn’t a big deal, they’d both almost gotten _shot_ – grab Ryan’s hand and pull him along.

They ran toward the stage. There were lots more people around – people who were going to be blown up, fuck – but they saw Brendon and Ryan and mostly moved out of the way. It was nice to be important as long as it didn’t lead to being kidnapped.

They burst on stage and Frank started yelling, “Out! Get out! Everybody out!” The techs and lighting guys and security just stared.

Ryan pulled his hand out of Brendon’s and leaned in to one of the microphones. “Hi,” he said, “Sorry. We need a few minutes alone in here to figure out some of the stuff for the show. Can everybody leave, please?”

He must have looked like The Guy From The Band Tonight. It was probably the ruffly, weird shirt or the fingerless gloves or the top hat. Maybe it was all those things together. Whatever it was, people started moving toward the doors. “Nice,” Brendon whispered.

Ryan smiled a little shakily. “I figured I ought to do _something_ besides standing around looking confused,” he whispered back.

As the place cleared out, Frank started inspecting the stage. “This is going to suck to defuse,” he said. “We might need to fake a fire alarm and let it blow by itself. I’m sure it’s on a timer. Did you see one, Brendon?”

Brendon shook his head. “Just the wires and all the C4,” he said.

“Well fucking go and look,” Gerard ordered, kneeling by an amp. “Fuck. Do you see this?”

“I saw,” said Frank, in his grim this-shit-is-serious voice. Then he giggled. “Remember the time in Berlin?”

“With the ninjas?” Gerard asked.

“That fucking ruled,” Frank agreed. “And hey, we didn’t die.”

“Not quite,” Gerard agreed, yanking on wires.

Brendon wasn’t sure where to look for a timer. “Backstage?” he said to Ryan. “Or underneath, maybe?”

“Sure,” Ryan agreed. They poked around the curtains and the wings, but while there were lots of soundboards and other equipment, there was nothing that looked like a sinister bomb countdown. After a minute or two Brendon was ready to give up and call Mikey to get some kind of pen-that-also-found-bombs.

Ryan found the door that led to under the stage. “We could have cool stuff pop out from here during the show,” said Brendon, following him.

“The show isn’t happening,” Ryan pointed out. “I mean. Not unless we find the bombs. Do you feel up to singing? I don’t feel up to playing.” He smiled uncertainly at Brendon.

It was the adrenaline, clearly, but Brendon could have sung ten shows if they made Ryan happy. “Maybe,” he said, and started poking around.

It was dusty and cluttered under the stage, but not as dusty as he expected. Someone had been down there recently. “Shit,” said Ryan suddenly, from all the way in the corner. “Are we… Are we maybe looking for a box with blinking red lights counting down?”

Brendon’s stomach dropped. “Yeah,” he said. “That sounds right.”

Ryan pointed. “Okay,” he said. “Then we have… Eleven minutes and a couple of seconds before this whole thing blows up. They weren’t going to wait for the show?”

“He changed it when Frank and Gerard showed up,” said Brendon certainly. “Donovan is really set on killing us.”

“Why?” Ryan asked plaintively. “I don’t mind the haters and stuff, but this is… This sucks.”

Brendon shrugged. “They didn’t tell me.”

“Weird,” said Ryan.

Brendon turned to go back upstairs to tell Frank and Gerard what they’d found, but he couldn’t get the door to the stairs open. “Um,” he said. “Ryan? Did you lock this?”

“Nnnnno,” said Ryan slowly. “That’s. Not good. Call them?”

Brendon grabbed for his phone, but it was gone. “I think it fell out of my pocket when I jumped Donovan.”

They stared at each other for a minute. “Scream and bang on the stage?” Ryan offered finally. And then, “Ten minutes four seconds.”

“Shit,” said Brendon.

\\\\\\\\\

“Will someone,” Spencer said, “tell me what is _really_ going on?”

It was hard to run and keep up with Ray and Bob while his nose still hurt like a bitch, and his head was kind of spinning with all the new information he’d just gotten. My Chemical Romance was friends with Brendon, and they were all bad-ass spies or something.

If he’d been pressed, Spencer would have admitted that the _least_ believable part of the whole thing was that Brendon had kept a secret for that long. Brendon sucked at secrets. Especially cool ones, and this was definitely cool.

It was also incredibly scary. Spencer had never had a loaded gun aimed at him before. He didn’t like it much. He liked it less aimed at Ryan and Brendon and Jon – Jesus Christ, who would shoot _Jon_ , that was totally unacceptable.

“Gerard gave you the rundown,” said Bob, and shrugged.

“Yeah, but…” Spencer almost ran straight in to Bob’s back when he stopped suddenly. “He didn’t explain why anyone was trying to blow us up or shoot us.”

Ray looked at Bob. Bob shrugged. After a minute, Ray nodded. “Okay, here’s the deal,” he said. “You two are kind of the… You’re the part of that band that makes sense, right? You two have your heads on straight. You’re not going to freak out?”

Spencer prided himself on not freaking out, even under really fucked up circumstances like these. “Of course not,” he scoffed. Behind him Jon made a face, but he nodded.

“The thing is,” said Ray in a hushed voice, “We’re not entirely sure. All we know is from emails Mikey’s gotten. He gets emails from himself in the future.”

Spencer blinked. “Fine,” he agreed, because he wanted Ray to keep talking, even if it was completely insane.

“Ask Brendon,” Bob advised. “He got shot with a ray gun from the future. He knows.”

Spencer filed that away grimly. “You let him get _shot_?” he demanded. “What kind of shitty-ass spies are you?”

Ray glared. “The point is,” he said, “Future Mikey says you guys… Well. There’s this group of people we don’t like very much. Donovan works for them. They’re trying to destroy the economy and ruin the world and other kinds of supervillain shit.”

“They suck,” Bob said succinctly.

“We can’t get in to all their nefarious reasons right now,” Ray went on. “You’ll just have to trust us. But what we _do_ know is… Future Mikey says you guys… Fuck, Bob, I don’t know how to say this.”

Bob sighed. “First he told us to keep an eye on you. Gerard thought it was like a music thing, like you’d steal our songs or something.”

“Hey!” Spencer protested. “We never –”

“Yeah, we know that _now_ ,” Bob agreed. “His emails got less cryptic because he decided we were being dumbasses. Apparently at some unspecified point in the future, your band is going to do something that… Well. That saves the world.”

Spencer stared at him. “Us?” he managed finally. “That… Are you sure you mean _us_?”

“That’s what he said,” Ray agreed.

Spencer looked at Jon. Jon shrugged good-naturedly. “It kind of seems unlikely,” he said. “I mean… Songs about clowns or something? Sure, we’re your guys. World saving, though? Uh. Will it involve wearing hats?”

“We don’t know what the fuck it involves,” said Ray. “Donovan’s guys hacked our phones a few weeks ago and found out, and you’ve been their major targets since then.”

“The thing is,” said Bob, “we didn’t tell this to Brendon. And you won’t, either.”

“But—” Spencer started, and then stopped. He was just barely able to deal with this stuff, and he couldn’t quite imagine Brendon or Ryan’s face if they were told they were world saviors. “We… You don’t even know _how_ or _when_?” he asked plaintively. “What if we… Listen, this is a lot of pressure.”

“Frank didn’t want to tell you at all,” Ray agreed. “He and Gerard are pretty resentful that your shitty dance-pop emo punk crap is that important. No offense.”

Spencer nodded. “So, our _album_ saves the world?” he said. “Like Bill and Ted?”

Bob shrugged again. “Maybe. We have no fucking idea.”

Spencer loved their album, and he loved Ryan’s lyrics, but he was willing to admit that it seemed pretty farfetched. “Maybe in like, ten years, we put out a really awesome album,” he said.

Ray looked doubtful, but he said, “Sure. Maybe.”

Bob crept ahead a few steps. “There’s six guys in the hall,” he said. “I’m betting this is what Donovan’s been using as an office. And I bet there are stairs in there to the fucking roof.”

“Helicopter,” Ray said immediately. “Blow the place and leave.”

“He knows we’re here,” Bob agreed.

Ray took out his phone and started typing. “Mikey can jam the helicopter,” he said. Spencer didn’t even want to know how Mikey was going to do that, wherever the fuck Mikey was. “We just have to get to Donovan. You two stay here.”

“No fucking way,” Spencer replied. If Brendon could handle all this super ninja shit, then Spencer could handle it better. That _had_ to be true. “We’re here to help.”

“You can’t save the world if you get shot before you’re old enough to drink,” Ray muttered.

Bob looked at Spencer seriously. “Listen,” he said. “Don’t fuck around here. Go for the throat.”

Spencer was secretly thrilled that Bob was taking him seriously. He was also more than a little scared that he was about to get really, really fucked up. “Okay,” he nodded. “Jon?”

Jon looked queasy, but he gave them a thumbs up.

“Three,” whispered Ray. “Two.”

On ‘one’ they burst around the corner. There were six guys in suits and they had guns, and for a second Spencer’s heart stopped, but Bob punched one of them in to the wall before anyone had time to register what was going on.

Spencer had a lot of pent-up anger about the whole thing; Brendon lying, Brendon getting hurt, Ryan almost getting shot, all the insane fucking weirdness of this afternoon. He channeled it into punching the shit out of the guy closest to him. He wasn’t as cool as Bob, he couldn’t quite take him out with one swing, but he knocked the guy to his knees. Spencer believed in fighting dirty. These guys would have killed his band, if they could have. Spencer kneed the guy in the face and then kicked him in the balls.

Jon was not having an awesome time; he’d gotten punched in the stomach and the guy was reaching for a gun. Spencer threw himself at the suit, wrapping his arms around his neck and squeezing until the guy fell to his knees. Spencer kept squeezing, until the suit’s eyes rolled up in his head and he went limp.

“Dude,” said Jon. “Nice. Anger management much?”

Spencer panted for a second. “Yeah,” he said. “I… That was fun.”

“Says you.” Jon shook his head.

Ray and Bob had taken down everyone else without even breaking a sweat. Spencer had to learn how they did that. They collected the guns and Spencer opened the office door.

Donovan had a briefcase and a couple of men with them; they pulled out guns and so did Ray and Bob, and Spencer was in the middle of a fucking standoff for the second time that day. This time, Spencer knew enough to actually be afraid, instead of just confused.

“Thank you for bringing them with you,” said Donovan. He didn’t seem anything like the nice guy from earlier. Spencer remembered Brendon’s face when he’d recognized Donovan and wanted to stuff the guy’s stupid face down his stupid throat. “Now I can shoot them.”

Ray sighed. Bob whispered, “This is the part where they _talk_. It goes faster if Gee’s not here.”

“What the _fuck_ , dude,” Spencer burst out. “You tried to fucking _kill_ us!”

“I’m still trying to kill you,” Donovan said evenly. “It ruins quite a lot of my financial investments if you go on to do whatever it is you’re going to do.” He smirked at Ray. “You’re not the only ones getting emails.”

Bob rolled his eyes. “Sometimes this goes on for a while.”

“I thought it would be enough to get rid of this one,” said Donovan, picking a paper off his desk and throwing it at Jon. “But then you showed up, and apparently that’s better.”

Jon’s eyes got huge and he held the paper up to Spencer. It was a fucking picture of Brent. “Hey!” Spencer said. “He was a friend of ours!”

“It was easy to convince him that rock star life wasn’t for him,” said Donovan.

“You son of a _bitch_ ,” said Spencer. He loved Jon, but losing Brent had been awful for the band, and for their friendship, and for Ryan, and for everything. He lunged, but Jon caught his arm and held him back.

“Guns,” Jon said. “Remember?”

Donovan smiled. “It wasn’t the plan to only kill half of them,” he said, “but it’ll do for an emergency measure.” He turned the gun toward Spencer and Jon.

It had been sort of hazy, before; just something Ray had _said_ , not something that was _true_. But Donovan wanted to kill them. He planned to blow them up. He would have shot them earlier if Gerard and Frank hadn’t shown up. And now, he was going to pull the trigger on the gun and actually _kill them_. Spencer tried to edge in front of Jon, which was awkward, because Jon was trying to edge in front of him. Spencer glared at him.

“No one’s shooting anyone,” said Ray, and threw his phone in the air.

There was a tremendous screeching noise and a flash of light and then Spencer was coughing his lungs out. Ray grabbed his arm and pulled him down. “Shirt,” Ray ordered, pulling Spencer’s t-shirt up so it was over his mouth.

It helped a little, but Spencer was still coughing and his eyes were watering. Ray and Bob were doing _something_ incredibly impressive with their ninja-fu, and by the time the smoke cleared the floor was covered in henchmen lying around unconscious.

“Where’s Donovan?” Spencer asked.

“He ran,” Bob said. “Come on.”

He took off for a hidden door in the wall that was wide open now. Spencer coughed and ran after him.

They went up a dark staircase and came out on the roof, where Donovan’s helicopter was taking off. “How do we stop him?” Spencer yelled, holding his arm up against the buffeting wind from the blades.

“We don’t,” yelled Bob. “Mikey does.”

“But—” Spencer started. He was pretty sure he could get to Donovan before the asshole got too far away, and then he would punch the shit out of him. Bob grabbed his arm and shook his head.

When the helicopter got high enough up, Bob pushed Spencer back toward the stairs and pulled his phone out and typed a couple of letters. Spencer braced himself.

The helicopter blew up with an _amazing_ fucking noise. Fire and blades and metal flew everywhere. Spencer pushed himself flat against the wall and tried not to be too scared of the fiery death raining down all over the roof. “Holy shit,” he said.

Bob turned and flashed him a quick smile. “Still want to help out?” he asked.

Spencer tried to feel upset that a couple of people had just been blown the fuck up in front of him. But that guy had almost killed him and Jon and Ryan, and he’d hurt Brendon. “Totally,” said Spencer.

“I knew you were a secret badass,” said Bob, and they went back downstairs.

\\\\\

Ryan shifted uncomfortably on the stairs. Brendon sighed and sat down next to him. Banging around and screaming hadn’t done a damn thing to alert anyone. Shooting the fucking _gun_ hadn’t even helped. “Frank and Gerard don’t know we’re going to blow up in… four minutes,” he said. “That really sucks.”

“I think blowing up is going to suck more,” said Ryan. “They never showed you how to defuse a bomb?”

Brendon shook his head. “Only how to make one.”

“You can’t…” Ryan wiggled his hands. “From that?”

“And accidentally blow us up? That doesn’t seem like a great plan.”

There was a moment of silence. The big red numbers kept clicking down. “Okay,” said Ryan suddenly. “If we’re about to blow up. You should know.”

“Know what?” Brendon put his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fist. This _sucked_. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go at _all_.

Ryan took a deep breath. “I wasn’t just mad that you were gone,” he said. “I was… I was jealous. I’ve had this stupid… This…” He stopped again.

“Three minutes ten seconds,” said Brendon morosely. “Spit it out.”

“This stupid _crush_ ,” Ryan blurted. “On you. For, like, ever. And you were away doing things without us, and you’d gotten all weird, but… I just thought you should know I wasn’t really mad. Um. The end.”

Brendon stared at him. His heart was pounding in his ears, and it wasn’t because he was worried about the bombs, just this once. “ _I’ve_ had a big stupid crush on _you_ forever,” he protested. “So you can’t… What?” So much for being over his crush, apparently; every stupid thought he’d ever had about Ryan came rushing back, this time with added dry mouth and shaking hands.

“Really?” Ryan said. “You… Oh. Maybe I should have said something sooner.”

Brendon wasn’t sure what to do. Under normal circumstances he would have been celebrating, maybe even have throwing himself at Ryan like an octopus or something and demanding immediate making out. But there was a bomb and imminent death to consider. It took some of the joy out of the situation.

“I wish I had more than two minutes and forty seconds to tell you how awesome I think you are,” he said instead.

Ryan smiled and slipped his hand in to Brendon’s. “You’re awesome, too,” he said. “I… I wish I’d said so before.”

Brendon said seriously, “I’m going to kiss you, okay? Normally I’d be all weird about it and like, have a total attack of being nervous, and freak out at you. But we’re going to die, so—”

“So you should shut up and kiss me,” Ryan agreed.

“I should,” Brendon said, and kissed him.

It was an awkward angle and there wasn’t a lot of time to try and finesse it in to anything good. They were still holding hands – Brendon’s was getting all sweaty and gross, and he wanted to pull it away, but Ryan didn’t seem to care, since they were going to die in a minute anyway. He brought his other hand up to Ryan’s face and just held it there. He’d wanted to for _so long_ , and here it was, and if this was it he might as well enjoy it.

“What the fuck?” yelled Frank.

Ryan jerked back like he’d been electrocuted. Frank and Gerard were standing on the stairs, looking at them with horror and a little bit of disgust. “Now is not the time for making out,” said Gerard in his lecture-iest voice. “That’s for _after_ you win and everyone’s safe.”

“Bomb,” said Brendon, and pointed at the wall.

“Fuck!” yelled Frank, and vaulted over them to get to it.

The numbers clicked over to TEN.

Ryan laced his fingers through Brendon’s and squeezed.

NINE.

Frank yanked the box open and started pulling at wires.

EIGHT.

Gerard pulled out his phone and started dialing frantically.

SEVEN.

Brendon put his head on Ryan’s shoulder, because honestly, why the fuck not at this point?

SIX.

Frank swore and sent a shower of sparks all over the floor.

FIVE.

Ryan smelled like soap and greasy stage makeup and it was awesome.

FOUR.

Gerard shouted something to Mikey.

THREE.

Brendon managed to wrap himself in to a hug around Ryan without letting go of his hand.

TWO.

Ryan squeezed his eyes shut and screwed his face up adorably.

ONE.

“I got it!” yelled Frank.

ZERO.

Nothing.

“We’re not dead,” Brendon whispered. Ryan opened his eyes again.

“Yeah, motherfucker, that’s how we _do_ it!” yelled Gerard triumphantly. He jumped over Ryan and Brendon and threw himself at Frank, who caught him with a hug and a giant, sloppy kiss.

Ryan made a face. “Did you throw up earlier?”

Fuck. Brendon had totally thrown up earlier, and then he’d kissed Ryan, how gross was that? “Um,” said Brendon, “Sorry. Yeah, I shot a guy and then I threw up, and--”

Ryan shrugged philosophically. “It’s not like you had time to brush your teeth,” he said.

“But I ruined our first kiss.” Brendon stopped for a second. “That was our _first_ kiss, right?” he said uncertainly. “Not some ‘I’m about to die so fuck it’ thing? Because I don’t think I could handle that, Ryan, honestly.”

“First kiss,” Ryan agreed. “Let’s not wait until we almost die to do it again, okay?”

“Okay,” Brendon agreed, grinning.

Gerard’s phone rang again. “Mikey says Ray and Bob stopped Donovan, but we still don’t know who he was working for,” Gerard relayed. “And everything here looks okay. You guys are fine to play the show tonight just like usual.”

“Maybe you’re fine,” Brendon said. “I need a week or two to recover.”

Gerard waved a finger at him. “If you’re going to be a rock-star-spy-ninja, Brendon, you need to toughen up. C’mon, Frank; Mikey’s making pizza bagels on the bus.”

Ryan frowned. “That’s it?” he said. “That’s… You just defuse the bombs and kill the bad guy and go home for snacks?”

Gerard shrugged and gave Frank a one-armed hug. “That,” he said, “is how we save the fucking world.”

**_A LITTLE WHILE LATER_ **

Spencer banged on the door to the cabin a couple of times. “Fucking hurry up!” he yelled. “These guns aren’t going to practice themselves!”

Brendon appeared in the doorway. He was still in his pajamas despite it being four in the afternoon, and his hair was sticking up in every direction. “As the only person here who has ever actually _shot_ someone,” he yawned, “I think I should be excused.”

Spencer crossed his arms. “You’re fucking with me, right? We only have like, two months out here to actually get _good_ at this stuff, and you’re not going to ruin it by lying around in bed with Ryan all day. Speaking of which, tell Ross to get his ass out here. He sucks at all of this.”

“Bob didn’t make you band dictator!” yelled Ryan from inside. “Chill the fuck out!”

“ _You_ chill the fuck out,” Spencer yelled back, which didn’t make any sense. Ryan was totally chill, and had been since he and Brendon had finally gotten their shit together.

Jon ambled out and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Spence,” he said, in his most reasonable you-are-being-a-crazy-person voice, “We’re allegedly up here to record an album. People are going to notice if there’s no music.”

“We’ll just tell them it sucked and we scrapped it,” Spencer said. “Now come on, Jon, seriously, I think I can flip you over my shoulder.”

“I think you can, too,” Jon agreed. “That doesn’t mean I _want_ you to.”

“I’m going back to bed,” Brendon announced.

“You—” Spencer spluttered. “You can’t just… Jon!”

Jon nodded wisely. “We are totally the worst spies ever,” he said. “I think you have to accept that.”

Spencer deflated a little. “Not the _worst_ -worst, though, right?” he said hopefully. “Like, Gabe Saporta would be _way_ worse.”

From inside the cabin, Brendon suddenly yelled, “Spencer! Tell Ryan that tickling is not fighting fair! _Tell him!_ ”

Spencer didn’t even have to roll his eyes. Jon gave him a hug. “I love you guys,” said Jon. “But. _This_ crew is going to save the world?”

Spencer just nodded. It was going to be okay; the band weren’t ideal world-savers, maybe, but they were all willing to try. That was going to have to be enough. “Worst spies _ever_ ,” he sighed, and went back to practicing.


End file.
